With his hands shaking the way they were, it took three attempts to get the keycard through the reader. The lock clicked and the light flashed green, indicating the door was open. Lourds eased into the room slowly and carefully, listening for the slightest noise. He spotted his luggage at the foot of the king-sized bed. The sight of the bed alone enticed him into the darkened room. He stripped out of the backpack and dropped it on to the room’s desk.

A mirror hung over the desk. When Lourds flipped on the nearby light and sought to check the damage done to his face, he saw the reflection of a man sitting comfortably in a chair beside the bed. Lourds hadn’t been able to see the man until it was too late.

He span round and headed for the exit, pausing only long enough to snag the backpack. Before he reached the door, it opened and a large man filled the doorway. The man stepped into the room and Lourds backed up.

‘Ah, Professor Lourds, I presume.’ The man in the chair beside the bed smiled apologetically. ‘I beg your indulgence. I feel like Stanley meeting Doctor Livingstone.’

Lourds stood his ground when the big man stopped advancing. The room was on the fourth floor. Even if he were able to crash through the reinforced glass of the window, when that shattered, he wouldn’t survive the fall.

‘I understood the reference,’ Lourds said.

The man smiled. ‘I knew you would. I don’t often get to talk to people so well educated in my line of work.’

‘Maybe you should tell me what your line of work is. Other than breaking and entering into hotel rooms.’

‘Oh, I didn’t break and enter, Professor. I had an invitation.’ The man reached under his jacket, and the brief movement revealed the pistol residing in the shoulder holster tucked neatly under his arm. ‘I have a legal document that allowed me to enter. I assume your Turkish is good?’

‘My Turkish is fantastic.’ Lourds took the document the man held out and glanced at it.

‘I assure you, Professor, you’ll find everything is in order.’

Lourds looked over the top of the document at the man. ‘You’re a policeman?’

The man spread his hands and smiled. ‘A detective, actually. Detective Dilek Ersoz at your service.’ He inclined his head slightly. ‘And I’m a fan. I enjoyed your Atlantis book and some of your other analytical treatises. And my wife continues to sing praises of Bedroom Pursuits.’

‘Can’t ever have too many fans, according to my publishers.’ Lourds handed the document back. ‘I assume you’re not here about an autograph. The last one I signed didn’t turn out so well.’

‘An autograph would be most excellent at some point,’ Ersoz replied. ‘Sadly, this is not that point.’

‘What do you want, Detective Ersoz?’

Ersoz held his thumb and forefinger about a quarter-inch apart. ‘Only a short amount of your time, Professor.’

‘I suppose I have no choice?’

‘Of course you have a choice.’ Ersoz smiled. ‘You can come of your own free will, or we can arrest you and take you out of here in handcuffs.’

‘I suppose a shower is out of the question.’

‘I must express my apologies for the hurry. My superior did ask me to bring you in the moment you showed up.’

Lourds sighed. ‘Of course he did.’

‘People died yesterday morning, Professor. There always has to be an accounting for something like this.’ Ersoz stood and fastidiously shot his cuffs. ‘Let’s go.’

Without another word, Lourds clapped his hat on his head once more and grabbed his backpack. He followed the big man out of the room.

Olivium Outlet Centre

Zeytinburnu District

Istanbul, Turkey

17 March 2010

When you have to disappear, the best place to disappear is inside a crowd.

Cleena’s father had taught her that when she was twelve and she’d started carrying guns for him to sell on the streets. That had been back when Ryan MacKenna had been working hand-to-mouth on the street in Boston’s Combat Zone. He’d sold weapons by the piece in those days, and often Cleena had carried them for him.

She’d learned how to run and hide during those days, and she’d become one of the best at it. No one had ever caught her, not the police and not other street gangs. She’d had a mental map of all the alleys and rooftops that afforded some measure of concealment and paths to safety. She’d ducked through tight places slick as a rat, and flew from rooftop to rooftop like one of the pigeons.

As soon as she’d quit Lourds and the robed strangers, she’d headed into the Zeytinburnu District. She’d been to Istanbul before, procuring weapons, and knew the area well enough. The neighbourhood was hard and hungry. During the day, quick-footed boys stole purses and wallets from tourists adventurous or ill-informed enough to come into the neighbourhood in search of vice. At night, the prostitutes and street-corner hustlers came out to ply their trades in the shadows. In the beginning, Zeytinburnu had been home to the leather industry in Turkey. That coastal area had been called Kazlicesme, after a famous stone fountain featuring a carved goose. These days, the goose was gone and so was the leather industry, but a mixed stew of Greeks, Bulgarians, Jews, Turks and Armenians still eked out a living there. Despite the difference in culture and dialect, Cleena knew she spoke the same language as the rough men and women working the streets. And she knew a lot about the struggling middle class living the straight life. Every metropolitan city had an underbelly like this one.

She’d bought clothing from a second-hand store and was now dressed in American jeans that mostly fit her, a pastel grey pullover that looked new, work boots and a quilted jacket. Wraparound sunglasses hid her eyes and she’d tucked her flaming red hair up under a black watch cap.

She carried a Czech 9mm pistol in the back of her waistband where she could get to it quickly if she needed to. A quick visit to a gun dealer she knew had netted her a clean pistol, with the understanding that the one she’d used as part of the payment was too hot to sell as it was.

Now you just make your arrangements and blow this pop stand, Cleena told herself as she strode through the Olivium Outlet Centre. Throngs of people surrounded her as she walked through the shopping mall. Four stories tall, and huge, the mall housed well over one hundred shops these days. Many of them carried named brands from the United States and Great Britain. There were theatres, a supermarket and several fast-food restaurants.

Cleena found a cyber café and purchased time on a card. She gave a false name and false identification to secure the computer.

Selecting one of the computers near the window that looked out over the wall, Cleena logged on and brought up the phone server her sister used. Brigid was for ever texting her friends. Cleena had learned how to text, but she didn’t except rarely. She’d preferred since childhood not to leave trails.

At the server, she checked the text log of the pre-paid cell phone she’d purchased in the airport. She’d ditched that phone when she’d dumped her clothes, and bought another phone in the mall.

Normally there were only occasional messages from Brigid. This time there were fourteen. All of them said the same thing.

CALL ME.

Cleena could almost hear the panic in her sister’s voice. She cancelled the session, dumped the access card in the basket, and left the shop.

Returning to the ground floor, Cleena took up a post near an escalator bank that allowed her an escape route in both directions. She watched the crowd, looking through the individuals to spot independent predatory approaches. She kept her jacket loose so she could easily reach the pistol. There were too many people looking for Professor Lourds or the manuscript that he’d taken.