Isabel played the beam into the hall below us as we came down into it. The hall was massive, maybe twenty feet high and a hundred square feet, at least. It reminded me of the underground cisterns in other parts of Istanbul. But this space was not built to hold water.
Its most prominent feature was a large door, maybe fifteen feet high and the same wide, in the centre of the far wall. Isabel directed the torch beam onto the door, then moved it around the walls as we came down.
There was an unnatural quiet here, as if the walls were listening, watching.
‘This is something else,’ said Isabel. ‘And I usually hate being underground.’
‘I hope this isn’t the entrance to a plague pit,’ I said.
‘A plague pit, you’re joking, right?’ She shuddered.
‘It’s got to be a possibility. Istanbul was the first city the Black Death hit in Europe. One summer in the sixth century, five thousand men, women and children were dying of the plague each day in this city. When it returned in the fourteenth century it was even worse.
‘This was a Christian city back then. The clergy looked after the sick. They buried the bodies in crypts under the churches first, then in pits. Later there were so many bodies they just threw them into the sea. Large crypts, catacombs in some places, were dug out under churches all over Europe. They were sealed up afterwards. I’m sure they would have done the same here, except on a bigger scale. Remember, Constantinople was the biggest city in Europe then.’
‘The Black Death, that’s just what I want to hear about right now.’ Isabel groaned.
‘You have to be careful in places like this, that’s all I’m saying.’
‘Where’s the way out then?’ She shone the torch around the room again. There was no obvious way out except through the big door in front of us. She shone the light on the floor.
‘Where’s this plague pit?’
‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged. ‘And we haven’t got time to look. Come on.’
Isabel was turning the torch on different parts of the underground hall. The walls were alive with frescoes. They reminded me of Pompeii. The faded mosaic floor was like an exhibit at a museum.
She let the beam of the torch linger on a wall fresco.
‘Look!’ She held the beam steady on a painting of an old man, seated, with a halo around his head. A younger man in a toga was kneeling in front of him, writing something on a roll of parchment with a long pen.
‘St John,’ I said. ‘The guy who dictated the Book of Revelation.’
‘What the hell is St John doing down here?’
‘I don’t know, but he isn’t going to help us find a way out.’
‘Did you hear something?’ she said.
We both stopped moving. There was nothing but silence.
Isabel moved the beam around the room. On the floor, in one corner, was a mosaic. A Madonna with Child. Debris littered the area around it.
‘That’s Alek’s mosaic,’ I said. ‘It’s gotta be.’ It was good to have found it, but unsettling.
I ran over to the mosaic. It looked, if anything, more vivid than in Alek’s picture. There was a low scaffolding platform near it, as if someone was planning to remove it completely.
I heard a far-off sound, a distant thud. My ears strained for something more, but nothing came.
We had to go. Isabel was pointing the torch beam at the great door. There was no other way forward.
The door was an impressive piece of work. Isabel walked slowly up to it, shining the light on the floor in front of it. The electric cable from the corridor ran straight under the door.
‘Look at that,’ she said, pointing at scrape marks near the door. ‘They’re recent.’ She turned the beam on to the door again.
It was made from thick planks running vertically, all so grey with age, they appeared to have turned to stone. Foot-wide veined black marble pillars stood on each side of the door. They were surmounted by globes the size of a human head. The pillars had bands of Greek letters carved into them.
‘Whoever built this was preparing for the end of the world,’ I said.’ Sacred inscriptions used to be carved in marble to ensure they’d survive the fires of the apocalypse.’ I stepped towards it.
‘Let’s see if it opens.’ I pulled one of the two handles. Nothing happened. I stopped and listened for more noises.
‘Wait a second,’ said Isabel. She passed me the torch, took out her phone and took a picture.
‘We haven’t got time for that,’ I said.
I pointed the beam at the door handles. They were metal rings that had blackened with age and were just about big enough to put my hand through. There was one near the centre of each door. I passed her the torch, gripped them properly this time with both hands and gave them a proper tug. They had to open.
Nothing happened. I looked for a lock. There was none.
‘Let’s pull them together,’ I said.
‘I knew I was going to come in useful,’ she said.
‘Just pull.’
We pulled together. Nothing happened.
‘Turn your handle,’ I said. ‘Make it straight.’ It was at a 90-degree angle to the one I was pulling.
‘It doesn’t move,’ she said. She yanked at it, pulling hard, jerking it each way in frustration.
I tried turning mine. At first it didn’t turn. I tapped it with my fist. It creaked loudly, then turned. Both handles were at the same angle now. We pulled again.
There was a low grinding noise. A welcome crack of light appeared. We pulled together. The doors moved slowly, but they moved. Bright light flooded into the room.
I stopped and squinted, unable to believe my eyes.
Chapter 35
Sergeant Mowlam paused the stream of text messages flowing across his screen. The one he was interested in had two red stars against it. The first indicated it was related to a current threat. The second indicated that a fatality was involved.
He clicked on the link. Another screen opened. He began reading a translated summary of a Turkish Interior Ministry emergency warning notice.
NOTICE: 24-9006734456C – CONFIDENTIAL
INTERIOR MINISTRY STAFF ONLY
WARNING: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS IMPLICATIONS.
VICTIM: DR SAFAD MOHADAJIN.
CAUSE OF DEATH: BEHEADING
COMMENT: DR SAFAD WAS A LEADING BIOLOGICAL SCIENTIST BELIEVED TO BE WORKING ON THE IRANIAN BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS PROGRAMME. HIS DEATH IN ISTANBUL CAUSES GRAVE CONCERN AS HIS REASONS FOR BEING IN TURKEY ARE UNKNOWN. DR MOHADAJIN’S SPECIALISATION WAS VIRUS MUTATION AND DNA EXTRACTION.
Chapter 36
‘What the hell is this?’ I said. Musty air flowed over us.
The space beyond the door stretched away into a gloomy distance of dark shadows and evenly spaced columns holding up the roof. This wasn’t just a room. This was a vast underground cavern, similar to the Basilica Cistern not far away, used all the way back to ancient times for storing water. But there was no water here.
Bright bare bulbs were suspended crudely from the ceiling near where the door was, but further away there were no lights at all. This space looked even older than the one we’d come through. It’s ceiling was lower too and the thin pillars gave it a crypt-like feel.
I looked down. The floor was a faded mosaic with an endless chequerboard pattern. It stretched away into the distance between the red marble columns. They were about twenty foot high and six inches thick and were spaced equally, maybe twenty feet apart. It was like looking into a wood of young trees.
‘This place is the find of the century,’ said Isabel.
Nearby, on a metal table, was a small black-and-white LCD screen. It was turned off. It had one red switch on its front panel. I pressed it. The screen came on.
The image on the screen was a view of the stairs from the security camera we’d turned away from us only minutes before. The camera angle was weird too, not straight, as if whoever had moved it back had positioned it wrong. I couldn’t see the doo
r we’d come through, but I could see polished black boots and baggy black trousers. A guard was standing to attention on the stairs. They hadn’t arrived with the locksmith yet.
Then something struck me. Did the fact that the guard was wearing black trousers mean that he wasn’t one of the ordinary Topkapi security detail I’d seen earlier? Was this guy connected with the people doing the exploration work down here? If he was, our chances of experiencing Alek’s fate had just risen by a factor of a hundred.
‘Let’s close this door,’ I said.
We grabbed the door and pushed it closed.
Isabel’s skin was shining like a mannequin’s in the yellowy light.
‘Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to keep all this hidden,’ I said.
‘I wonder why,’ she said.
The unease I’d felt since I’d seen that guard was growing. We had to get out of here, and quickly.
I started walking towards an open area straight ahead, about the size of a tennis court. I was hoping we’d see a far wall beyond it, another door.
Through the columns I’d seen aluminium tables. I ran towards them. Isabel followed.
The tables were bare. There were four of them. One was upside down. It looked as if someone had cleared the place out.
Beyond them, at the centre of another open area, there was something on the floor. I ran toward it. It was a zodiac circle pattern in a three-foot wide grating made of interwoven bands of black and white marble.
‘There was a lot of blood to be washed away in old temples,’ said Isabel.
‘Messy,’ I said.
‘I wouldn’t have liked to be a slave cleaning this place up.’
I could see a red brick wall now, about fifty feet further on. It was almost totally in shadow. But there was no door.
I headed towards the wall, running now. Was there another way out? The pillars in the row in front of the wall were thicker than the others, maybe a foot across. Something about them looked familiar. Unsettlingly familiar.
Then it hit me. The photo on the Internet from the video of Alek’s beheading was coming alive in front of me.
I reached the thicker pillars. I didn’t want to be here, but I was being pulled forwards, like iron to a magnet. I felt cold.
The only sound I could hear now was my own breathing. I looked along the row of pillars, saw a dark stain below the next one along. Was this where it had happened? I walked over to it, bent down and touched the stain. It was bone dry and crumbled a little as I rubbed at it.
Images flooded my mind. I saw Alek lying in the morgue, blue-veined, his head oddly distant from his body. Then I saw Irene in her coffin, the top of her head covered by a cream veil. Then that picture of the poor receptionist. So many deaths. So much evil. I wanted the images to go away. But they wouldn’t.
‘They usually drug them before…’ Isabel’s voice trailed off.
Her hand was on my shoulder.
‘They mustn’t give a damn, leaving a stain like this,’ I said.
‘They probably haven’t finished cleaning up yet.’ She gripped my shoulder tight. ‘Come on, Sean. I can get the Consulate involved now. I’ve got pictures. It’s the proof we need. The Turkish authorities will go berserk when they find out what’s been going on down here, right under their noses.’
I could feel malevolence all around us, as if it was alive.
‘Which way should we go?’ she said.
The forest of pillars ran away ahead of us into darkness. There was no visible way out. We could follow the wall, see if there was another door somewhere, but which way should we go, left or right?
A low creak echoing through the hall answered my question. It only took a second to work out what it meant.
‘Someone’s coming,’ hissed Isabel.
Her face was pale. ‘What do we do?’ she said.
‘You won’t like this.’
Her eyebrows shot up.
‘Follow me.’
I ran, crouching, to the marble grating in the floor. A low grinding noise echoed through the hall. They were pushing the doors open. We had seconds.
I reached down. The marble grating reminded me of a manhole cover. I pulled at it. It wouldn’t budge.
‘We’re going to go down here,’ I said.
The marble cover was cold. I pulled, bracing my knee on one side.
‘What’s down there?’ she hissed. She pushed a pebble through one of the holes. I didn’t hear it hit anything.
‘Just help me,’ I said. My fingers were covered in slime. I pulled again, harder this time.
Isabel went to the other side.
‘There’s a catch. There’s gotta be,’ I said. ‘See if you can find it.’ I moved my fingers under the edge of the grating, felt around. The slime on the underside was thicker in some places than others.
‘Found it.’ I pushed at something sticking out.
We pulled again. I half stood. The grating moved. We slid it sideways. The grinding noise had stopped. They wouldn’t see us straight away, but it wouldn’t take them long if they were searching.
The hole looked like a well. My skin crawled as I thought of what might be down there. There was a sour smell coming out of it too.
‘Look, handholds,’ I whispered. ‘Come on. You go first. I can pull the grating back.’
‘I can’t,’ she said softly. ‘It’s horrible.’
‘Go on,’ I said. ‘It’s not that bad. I’m not going to watch you being beheaded.’
I looked up. I’d heard a noise. I couldn’t see the door we’d come in by, because of the pillars, but I could see the tables. When they reached them they would see us.
She put her legs over the edge, reached down, grabbed the handholds. She looked terrified, her eyes were wide, but she swung herself down.
I glanced in the direction of the tables. There was still no one there.
I pulled the grating halfway over the hole as noiselessly as I could. Then I swung my legs over, and took a deep breath.
I went down. The sickly smell was stronger suddenly. A rotting sourness engulfed me.
Isabel had turned the torch on and was pointing it downwards. The beam of light bounced around the encircling brick wall. I had an awful feeling I was being sucked into something which wouldn’t be easy to get out of.
‘Turn it off,’ I whispered quickly, leaning down.
She did.
My head was parallel with the floor. I slid the grating forward, pulled it over on top of me. For one horrible second I thought the grating might tip over into the hole. But then it slid into place with a little snap. As my reward, most of the light went out. It felt as if a thick shroud had been thrown over us.
And the rotting smell just got worse with each step I went down.
Chapter 37
The exclusive St George’s Hotel, on Park Lane in central London, looked from the outside like a large top-of-the-range townhouse. Inside, however, once you got past the punctilious English butler and deferential Spanish housemaids, lay a haven for the platinum class.
Once a guest had been ushered in to their self-contained suite, they’d never even have to see another guest if they didn’t want to. It was like having your own Mayfair townhouse, with a two-lane swimming pool, a marble jacuzzi, a canopied balcony overlooking a private garden, a chef, a driver and a personal masseuse – Thai or Swedish – all to yourself.
Arap Anach was well used to such simple pleasures. Having recently arrived, he was sitting alone in the main reception area of his suite watching a wall-mounted LCD TV.
The channel he was tuned to, Al-Jazeera English, was showing images of a riot. He had the sound turned down. On the screen a veiled woman was running towards the camera. She was screaming. Blood was streaming down her face from a deep cut in the centre of her forehead. Behind her a line of black-scarved and hooded rioters was throwing stones at a distant police line. Arap sat back in his chair. It was all going exactly to plan, better than he could have expected.
; The riots and demonstrations against the mosque raids in London and Paris were producing the desired effect. It was easy to stir things up if you knew how; to incite hatred if you had the right connections.
A buzzer sounded. Arap stood, walked to the desk, picked up the electronic tablet that came with the suite and pressed a button.
An image popped on to the screen. It showed the hallway of the hotel. A man was being helped from a long navy overcoat.
The butler turned to the camera and bowed. ‘Your guest has arrived, sir.’ The microphone he spoke into was on a stalk running from his ear to his cheek.
‘Show him up.’
The butler nodded.
Arap reached out for a slim laptop that sat on a long walnut cabinet. He tapped the screen. An image flashed onto it; two faces side-by-side, passport photo sized, a man and a woman.
Images of people who’d soon be dead.
He flicked his fingers over the mouse pad. The images of Isabel and Sean grew larger. The discovery of their bodies might not even be noticed once the events on Friday reached their climax, but even if their deaths were covered in the media it would send a perfect signal.
Peaceful co-existence was no longer an option. New policies were needed. And they would be implemented, once the change had taken place.
Chapter 38
I gagged at one point, the smell was so disgusting. I stopped, took a slow breath and looked up. So far, nothing. I imagined the grating above us being opened at any moment. I needed to cough. I suppressed it. Seconds went by.
The grating above me, a bright criss-cross, didn’t move. After the wave of silent gagging passed I kept going down.
Then I heard someone shout in Turkish. It sounded as if they were right above us. Isabel turned the torch off. I stopped, absolutely sure that the grating above would be moved aside, that we’d been caught. But the seconds turned into a minute, and only silence followed.
In the stinking dark, gripping each handhold as tightly as I could, my hands like claws, I moved down one rung at a time. And the deeper I went, the smellier it got, until something slapped at my foot and I almost shouted.
The Istanbul Puzzle Page 20
