A Deceit to Die For (8 page)
Zeki followed the bell boy into his hotel room, fished a small bill out of his pocket and handed it to the young, dark-skinned man.
Probably Pakistani
.
Before the boy had even closed the door, he had pulled the curtains. The first thing he did was put on his slippers, open his suitcase and start hanging up his clothes. From Ankara, London was a short four-hour flight, but when you added the time it took to drive out to Esenboga Airport and the traffic from Heathrow to his hotel, total transit time was almost eight hours. The older he got, the more he hated traveling.
He knew travel fatigue was simply lethargy caused by hours of inactivity, but it made him feel his age more keenly. He looked at the package wrapped in brown paper sitting on the chest of drawers. It would be some old book that Ian had found at an estate sale somewhere. He found a small Swiss army knife in his bag, cut the string and tore the paper away. He drew his breath in sharply as he very carefully picked up two bound manuscripts. Ian had clearly outdone himself this time. One was volume six of the eight-volume
History of the Wars
by Procopius of Caesarea, the most prominent early Byzantine historian. The second was
Arcana Histora
by the same author.
Ian must have noted their absence from my library last year when he was in Istanbul
.
He flipped open his briefcase and took out the brochure he had saved from the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies several years back. It was a complete list of the workshops and sessions, but the back cover included a list of select restaurants that had been carefully prepared by committee members intimately acquainted with the best dining in the area. He scanned the list for something on Southampton Row, the same street on which Bonnington Hotel was located. He needed the number for the Chanbeli Indian Restaurant and there could not have been a less suspicious way to carry it.
Istanbul was a cosmopolitan city, but Indian cuisine had never developed a following there. London was much further from India, but its colonial ties to the area had resulted in significant cultural exchange. The demise of the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the century had made the Turks very inward and hostile to foreign influences. It all began to change when Turgut Özal liberalized markets in the early 1980s. Still, Turkey had no organic connection with India, so curry was something known only to cultured members of the elite who had been abroad. London was the best chance he would have at a decent curry dish.
Next, he fished around in his suit coat for his cell phone, carefully removed the back of the phone to take out the SIM card and insert the new pre-paid one that he had bought at the airport. Five minutes later, he had confirmed his reservation; twenty-five minutes later he was at the door.
As usual the restaurant was dimly lit and Zeki waited a moment in the entrance for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. His nose, however, sprang to life, enjoying the olfactory feast of tamarind, saffron, turmeric, ginger and coriander. A waiter noticed him standing at the door and immediately came over to show him to his seat.
“Mr. Öztürk,
As-salamu alaykum
.”
“
Wa Alaykum As-salam
. Abdullah.
Inshallah
, you are well.”
“Allah is ever merciful. It is a pleasure to see you again.
Kismet
smiles upon you. The chef has prepared a magnificent buffet of the finest Punjabi dishes.”
“Well, the only thing better than a meal at Chanbeli is two meals at Chanbeli and a buffet is more like several meals rolled into one.”
“Ours is to serve. We are slaves of the One.”
The waiter showed him to his customary seat in the back corner where there was a table for two. The table gave him a clear view of the front door. As Abdullah stood pouring his sparkling water, Zeki asked nonchalantly, “Is there any news?”
“None that would serve your purpose.”
S
UNDAY
, L
ONDON
Ian awoke early Sunday morning, determined not to let his curiosity about the mysterious document interfere with his work. After a breakfast consisting of one hard-boiled egg, a piece of toast and tea, he sat down to work on his presentation. It was futile. No matter how hard he tried to focus, the allure of a pristine enigma, a document that had remained hidden for perhaps hundreds of years, was too strong to resist. The vortex of the esoteric pulled at every other thought like a magnet snapping up metal filings. It was pointless to try to resist. He closed the plastic binder which held his speech, walked into the kitchen for another cup of tea, thinking over how it had all started.
His interest in George Sale had begun many years ago. The man had been an Orientalist of some reputation. He had worked on the ambitious Universal History project and completed one of the early English translations of the Qur’an. As a member of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, he had edited the
Arabic New Testament.
Although he was a solicitor, he only practiced law out of necessity. The man was a true scholar. Unfortunately, he had died unexpectedly at the age of thirty-nine.
He respected Sale as an accomplished fellow historian and for the man’s commitment to learning, which was why he had snatched up one of Sale’s diaries at a private offering twelve years ago. The diary had lain on his shelf for almost five months before he had found time to read it. What he discovered was a man of deep faith violently opposed to blind tradition. The more he read the more convinced he was that Sale had been a kindred spirit.
Ian walked into his study, pulled the dusty diary off the shelf and sat down at the desk. The book fell open to a series of entries towards the end guided by memory creased into pages and binding. Over the last decade, these pages had turned into a hobby of sorts. Conspiracy and danger were not hard to spot in these short entries. They had led him on a journey of discovery that opened his eyes to the intrigues of culture, and its political value as a weapon. He knew the lines he had circled in red by heart, but read them anyway.
July 5th 1736, My meeting in Amsterdam with the Morisco printer was peculiar in the extreme. His lavish hospitality and overanxious manner made me apprehensive. When I inquired about his business and family, he was elusive. After some pleasantries, he quickly came to the point, offering me ten thousand guineas for my copy of the Spanish translation. It is impossible for me to conceive what purpose would warrant such an exorbitant sum. I asked for a few days to consider his offer, at which point he became very agitated and insistent. When I refused to budge, he dismissed me out of hand, saying I was a fool to even consider rejecting such a magnanimous offer. Needless to say, it is incumbent upon me to ascertain what his true purpose is. A friend recommended I contact an acquaintance of Eugene of Savoy, which I intend to do on my next visit to Amsterdam.
It had taken Ian several months to say with certainty what translation Sale was referring to. Ian flipped over four pages to a related entry.
September 3rd 1736, It is now two weeks since I sent the printer a letter informing him of my unwillingness to part with the Spanish translation in my possession. Now, for the last three days, I have been shadowed on the street by two men. I could swear one of them was present at my meeting in Amsterdam.
Ian turned the page to read the last entry Sale ever made about the manuscript.
September 29th 1736, I saw the two shadows again today in the market. This evening, Mr. Callamy informed me that several foreigners have been making discreet inquiries about me. I am more convinced than ever that this is a matter of State. It is imperative that I find out more. In the meantime, I must take measures to protect it.
A little less than one month later, Sale had been stricken with the fever and died. Within thirty years, his manuscript had disappeared forever; only a half-finished copy survived and it had remained hidden until 1974 in a private library in Australia.
Ian closed the diary, stood up in the center of the room and allowed his eyes to focus on nothing in particular until the whole room became somewhat fuzzy. He could imagine then that the books which lined the walls from floor to ceiling were actually a mural or wall paper instead of real books. This was the library of a historian, his private collection. It had taken years to build and was his most prized material possession. He gazed upon the books which chronicled the story of mankind’s triumph over the cruelty of the natural world, how he had tamed nature and transformed it into a farm, banishing hunger and deprivation, how he had created alphabets to facilitate communication and trade, creating the leisure time necessary to meditate upon and express sublime spiritual truth in art and literature. It was the story of mankind’s triumph.
It was also a story penned in the blood of people from every tongue and tribe. The tale of humanity’s fatal flaw, the irresistible allure of power, and the horrifying violence employed to obtain and keep it. He closed his eyes and allowed his mind to fly back through the pages of history and shuddered at the terror man had visited upon his brother. Horrors and suffering too vile to utter were buried in the volumes before him, silent testimony to the existence of evil.
His cell phone rang. He looked at the screen. It was Judith.
“Hello, Judith.”
“Hi. How goes the sleuthing?”
“No progress yet. Too busy working on my presentation for the conference.”
“You don’t fool me, Ian O’Brien. You could lecture on any facet of Byzantine history without a moment’s forewarning, and you’ve been working on this for weeks.”
“Well, I was just considering a short break to do some background reading on the symbol at the top of the page, but I honestly haven’t spent any time on it yet. The first thing I’ll need is some help with the Arabic. I assume it is a Morisco document.”
“Must be. Have you met Dr. Brown from the Mediterranean Studies department?”
“At King’s College?”
“This will be his first term.”
“I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him. How do you know him?”
“Remember how they asked me to fill in for Dr. Humphries on the search committee while she was undergoing yttrium treatments for stage-three liver cancer. The man’s credentials are excellent, top notch scholar, already published in several journals, and classical Arabic was a special field of interest. Dr. Peacock over at University College London was his advisor.”
“Well, that would be helpful indeed. I shall stop by his office on Monday.”
“No need to rush. You promised this would be a team effort, remember. I’ll be back on Thursday.”
“I won’t solve anything without you, just a little preliminary investigation and fact-gathering . . .”
“I’ll call you when I get back.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
A
NKARA,
T
URKEY
He hated working on Sunday, but the disappointment over Bekir’s escape was rubbing Yusuf like a pair of new shoes. They had lost him without a trace. There were too many loose ends and unanswered questions. He knew the answers were less important than the process of engaging the facts. This was what stimulated his investigative instinct.
Why had Bekir risked exposure by taking public transportation? There must have been something pressing and other arrangements had fallen through. What could be pressing right now?
Yusuf racked his brain for any significant developments.
Did this mean that the Turkish branch of Hizbullah was being resurrected? Why the Black Sea? He had almost certainly rendezvoused with a ship. Headed where
?
Georgia? Moldavia? Ukraine?
Yusuf had gained a wealth of information from the women, none of which shed any light on these questions. Most of the women had come to Turkey after being promised house-keeping, home-care or nanny positions with wealthy Turkish families. When they arrived, however, their passports were taken away from them, and they were forcibly removed to one of several brothels in Istanbul. The very best were selected and then taken to the villa in Akçakoca. The small Black Sea town was really just a stopping place on their way to the Middle East, where they were sold to rich Arab businessmen as concubines. Every week between four and eight of the women had been taken away, never to be heard from again. They were auctioned to the highest bidder over the Internet and those who refused to perform for the camera were brutalized into submission. Then, before they were delivered to their new owners, they were kept busy serving patrons, not all of whom were local.