Crescent Dawn Page 10

  “What would be the motive?”

  “The typical incidences of mosque bombings, as we’ve seen in Iraq, are Shia attacks on Sunni mosques, or visa versa,” offered the CIA officer. “Though in the case of Turkey, I believe the Shia Muslims in the country are a nonviolent minority.”

  “That’s correct,” O’Quinn stated. “A more likely culprit would be Kurdish separatists. Turkey is holding national elections in less than four weeks. It’s possible that the Turkish attacks were instigated by the Kurds, or another fringe political party trying to stir up trouble, though I’m not sure that would explain a link to Cairo.”

  “I would think the Turkish authorities would have been quick to publicly blame the Kurds if they thought they were actually behind the attacks,” Braxton said.

  “You’re probably right,” O’Quinn replied, flipping through his briefing notes. His fingers stopped at a copy of the NSA intercept transcript recorded by George Withers.

  “Sir, there’s another development on the Turkish front that may be cause for alarm.”

  “Go ahead,” the general said.

  “Altan Battal, the Muslim Mufti of Istanbul and a leading fundamentalist cleric in Turkey, will be entering the upcoming presidential election, according to an NSA call intercept.”

  “President Yilmaz has had a stable leadership run for several years,” Braxton noted. “And Turkey is strongly secular. I can’t imagine that this Battal fellow represents more than a marginal candidacy.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not the case,” O’Quinn replied. “President Yilmaz’s popularity has waned considerably due to the poor state of the economy, and he’s been stung by recent corruption charges within his administration. Mufti Battal, on the other hand, has become a rising public figure in the country, particularly with the poor and unemployed. There’s no telling how he’ll perform as a political candidate, but many fear he could represent a legitimate challenge to the incumbent.”

  “Tell me more about this Battal,” the general asked.

  “Well, sir, his claimed bio states that he was orphaned at an early age and forced to fight for survival in the ghetto slums of west Istanbul. He escaped a life of poverty when he came to the aid of an old man being robbed by a neighborhood thug. In gratitude, the man, a mosque elder, sent Battal to a private Muslim school, where he paid the boy’s room and board well into his teens. The school was heavily fundamentalist, which apparently drives his views today. He has a heavy scholarly bent yet also a gift for oration, which helped accelerate his rise through Istanbul’s Muslim hierarchy. He now stands as the chief theologian for all of Istanbul. Though personally charming, his writings and sermons espouse Taliban-like interpretations of Islam, with plenty of rallying about the evils of the West and the dangers of foreign influence. There’s no telling what would happen if he was elected, but we’d have to face the real possibility of losing Turkey overnight.”

  “Does he have a chance to win the election?” Braxton asked with rising dread in his voice.

  O’Quinn nodded. “Our assessment is that he could have a real shot at it. And if the Turkish military should sustain his election, then all bets are off.”

  An Air Force colonel seated at the table gasped. “A fundamentalist takeover of Turkey? That would be an unmitigated disaster. Turkey is a NATO country and one of our strongest allies in the region. We have a variety of military resources in the country, including tactical nuclear weapons. The Air Force base at Incirlik is critical for our operations in Afghanistan.”

  “Not to mention the listening posts on their soil we use to monitor the Russians and the Iranians,” added the CIA man.

  “Turkey is currently a key transfer point for supplies into Afghanistan, as they were for Iraq,” grieved an Army major seated beside the colonel. “Loss of those supply lines would jeopardize our entire Afghan campaign.”

  “We foresee all kinds of potentially disastrous scenarios,” O’Quinn added quietly, “from a closure of the Bosphorus, and its flow of Russian oil and gas, to an emboldened Iran. The entire Middle East would be affected, and the impact of such a change on the balance of power is nearly impossible to predict.”

  “Turkey has been a quiet friend and trading partner of Israel, exporting large quantities of food and fresh water, among other things,” the CIA officer said. “If Turkey and Egypt were both to make a turn toward fundamentalism, it would heighten Israel’s isolation. In addition to emboldening Iran, I would fear a greater aggression from Hamas, Hezbollah, and other frontline adversaries of Israel, which would only lead to greater violence in the region. Such a turnabout in ruling power could in fact become the trigger point that we have long feared, the one that sparks World War Three from the heart of the Middle East.”

  The room fell silent as Braxton and the others digested the words with quiet dread. The general finally shook off the uneasy tension and barked a stream of orders.

  “O’Quinn, I want a full report on this Mufti Battal on my desk first thing in the morning. I’ll also need an executive summary for the Presidential Daily Brief. We’ll reconvene here Friday, where I expect a full assessment from both State and CIA. Assign whatever resources are necessary,” he added with clenched teeth, “but don’t let this get ahead of us.” He slammed his briefing book shut, then glared at the CIA man.

  “World War Three?” he hissed. “Not on my watch!”

  10

  THE CALL TO MORNING SALAT DRIFTED THROUGH THE open hotel window, waking Pitt earlier than he would have preferred. Leaving the warm comfort of Loren’s side, he rose from bed and peered out the window. The black-tipped minarets of Istanbul’s Sultanahmet Mosque scratched a hazy sky just a few blocks away. Pitt noted wryly that the Islamic call to prayer no longer came from a muezzin shouting from the heights of the minaret but rather from loudspeakers situated around the mosque.

  “Can you turn that racket off?” Loren mumbled from beneath a blanket.

  “You’ll have to take it up with Allah,” Pitt replied.

  He closed the window, then gazed through the pane at the towering architecture of the nearby mosque and the blue waters of the Sea of Marmara just beyond. A large contingent of freighters was already assembling in line, waiting their turn to sail up the narrow Bosphorus Strait. Loren materialized out of the bed, slipping into a robe and joining her husband at the picture window.

  “I didn’t realize that blaring came from the mosque,” she said a bit meekly. “It’s quite beautiful. Built by the Ottomans, I presume?”

  “Yes, in the early seventeenth century, I believe.”

  “Let’s go have a look after breakfast. But after last night’s excitement, that may be all the sightseeing I’ll be up for today,” she said with a yawn.

  “No shop-till-you-drop at the Grand Bazaar?”

  “Maybe next time. I want our lone full day together in Istanbul to be relaxing.”

  Pitt watched a red freighter chug off the shoreline, then said, “I think I have just the ticket.”

  They quickly showered and dressed, then ordered breakfast brought to their room. They were readying to leave when the phone rang. Pitt answered and spoke for several minutes, then hung up the receiver.

  “It was Dr. Ruppé, calling from the airport. He wanted to make sure you were okay,” he explained.

  “I’d feel better if you told me the police had captured those criminals.”

  Pitt shook his head. “Apparently not. Rey is a little irate, as the local media is blaming the break-in and murders on an anti-Muslim movement. Apparently, some valuable jewelry was ignored at Topkapi in favor of several Muhammad relics.”

  “You said murders in the plural,” Loren remarked.

  “Yes, there were a total of five security guards killed in the ordeal.”

  Loren grimaced. “The fact that several of the murderers were Persian-looking didn’t clue the police in another direction?”

  “The police have our account. I’m sure they are operating under a different scenario.” Deep down, Pitt wasn’t so sure but hid his anger at the thought of his wife’s kidnappers escaping scot-free.

  “The other news, according to Ruppé,” he continued, “is that they kept our names and involvement out of the paper. Apparently, there is widespread outrage at the theft, which is being viewed as a deep insult to the Muslim community.”

  “Even after our near-death experience, that’s okay with me,” Loren mused. “By the way, what exactly did they end up stealing?”

  “They made off with a battle standard that belonged to Muhammad. Apparently, the outrage would have been even more magnified if you hadn’t liberated the second black bag.”

  “What did it contain?”

  “A cloak of Muhammad’s, called the Holy Mantle, along with a letter written in his hand. Part of what is known as the Sacred Trusts.”

  “It’s terrible that somebody would try to steal such relics,” Loren said, shaking her head.

  “Come on, we better go see the rest of this town before anything else disappears.”

  They exited the lobby of the hotel and entered the bustling streets of old Istanbul. Pitt noticed a man in mirrored sunglasses staring at Loren as he passed on his way into the hotel. Tall and sporting a near-ballerina figure, Loren seldom failed to attract the male eye. Dressed in light slacks and an amethyst blouse that nearly matched the color of her eyes, she looked vivacious despite the turmoil of the night before.

  Walking down a block or two, they stopped and peered in the window of an upscale rug shop called Punto of Istanbul, admiring an elegant Serapi carpet that hung on the wall. Strolling to the end of the street, they crossed the Hippodrome, a long, narrow park around which the chariots raced in the Byzantine era. Just beyond was the mosque of Sultan Ahmet I.

  Completed in 1617, it was the last of Istanbul’s great imperial mosques. The exterior featured a rising cascade of domes and semi-domes that climbed in height and grandeur until culminating in a massive central dome. By the time Pitt and Loren had entered the mosque’s arched courtyard, most of the morning worshippers had been replaced by camera-toting tourists.

  They made their way into the prayer hall, its expansive interior dimly lit by high banks of stained-glass windows. Overhead, the curving domes were covered in a maze of intricately patterned tiles, many in shades of blue, which gave the building its nickname, the Blue Mosque. Pitt studied an archway filled with familiar-looking floral tiles, which were manufactured in the nearby city of Iznik.

  “Look at that design,” he said to Loren. “It’s nearly identical to the pattern on the ceramic box we pulled from the wreck.”

  “You’re right,” Loren agreed, “though the coloring is a little different. Congratulations, it’s more evidence that your wreck sank around sixteen hundred.”

  Pitt’s satisfaction was short-lived. Eyeing a green-tiled wall on the opposite side of the prayer hall, he spotted a man in sunglasses looking in his direction. It was the same man who had gawked at Loren outside the hotel.

  Without saying a word, Pitt slowly herded Loren toward the exit, consciously staying close to a group of German tourists on a guided tour. He casually surveyed the crowd scattered about the mosque, trying to discern whether Sunglasses had any partners. Pitt noticed a thin Persian man with a bushy mustache shuffling along nearby, a serious scowl on his face. He appeared incongruous among the other tourists standing with their necks craned toward the ceiling. It seemed unlikely that the Topkapi thieves would have tracked them down so quickly, though Pitt recalled the threatening words of the woman in the cistern. He decided to find out for sure.

  Following the Germans out of the prayer hall, Pitt and Loren pulled on the shoes they had removed earlier and followed the tour group into the courtyard. Pitt watched from the corner of his eye as the Persian followed suit.

  “Stay here,” Pitt told Loren, then turned and quickly strode across the marble tile toward the man.

  The Persian immediately turned, pretending to study a nearby column behind him. Pitt strode right up and gazed down at the man, who stood a head shorter.

  “Excuse me,” Pitt said. “Can you tell me who’s buried in Atatürk’s tomb?”

  The man at first avoided Pitt’s gaze, peering instead toward the prayer hall exit where Sunglasses now stood. Spotting a shake of the head, he turned and faced Pitt with a look of contempt.

  “I wouldn’t know where that dog lies,” he spat, his eyes glistening with an arrogant intimidation born of a hardened life in the streets. An undercover police agent he was clearly not. When Pitt noticed the telltale bulge of a holstered handgun under the man’s loose shirt, he decided not to press the issue. He gave the man a cold, knowing look, then turned and stepped away. Walking back to Loren, he half expected a bullet in the back and silently hoped the crowds and mosque security were sufficient deterrents to spare an immediate attack.

  “What was that about?” Loren asked as he returned.

  “Just checking the time. Come on, let’s see if we can catch a cab.”

  The German tour group was slowly moving toward the courtyard exit, but Pitt grabbed Loren’s hand and dragged her past them, slipping out before they converged on the doorway. Pitt didn’t bother looking back, knowing full well that Sunglasses and the Persian would be in pursuit. Prodding Loren to the street, he got lucky and commandeered a cab that was off-loading an elderly pair of tourists out front.

  “To the Eminönü ferry docks, as fast as you can,” he directed the cabdriver.

  “Why all the rush?” Loren asked, slightly agitated at being hustled into the car.

  “I think we are being tailed.”

  “That man you spoke to inside the mosque?”

  Pitt nodded. “And another fellow wearing sunglasses who I saw earlier outside our hotel.”

  As the cab pulled into traffic, Pitt looked out the back window. A small orange sedan screeched up to the curb with a lone driver inside. Pitt looked across the mosque grounds to see the German tourist group still congregated around the mosque exit. He smiled as he spotted the Persian clumsily fighting his way through the thick crowd.

  “Why don’t we go to the police?” Loren asked, a rising note of alarm in her voice.

  Pitt flashed a reassuring grin. “What, and ruin our one and only relaxing day in Istanbul?”

  11

  THE YELLOW TAXI QUICKLY MELTED INTO TRAFFIC, LEAVing the domed mosque and its minarets in the rearview mirror. Had the driver turned north and wound through the crowded maze of the historic old city, he would have easily lost the orange sedan to thick traffic. But the judicious cabdriver, thoughtful to make good time, instead turned south and headed toward a divided motorway called the Kennedy Caddesi.

  The pursuers desperately attempted to catch up. The orange sedan sped away from the mosque after picking up its two passengers, nearly getting sideswiped by a tourist bus as it wove through traffic.

  “I think they turned right,” the driver said in a hesitant voice.

  “Go,” Sunglasses directed from the front passenger seat while nodding at the driver to follow his instincts.

  The car turned south, bolting through a red light, before slowing behind a procession of crawling vehicles. Seated in the backseat, the Persian suddenly pointed down the road, spotting a yellow cab two blocks ahead turning onto the Caddesi.

  “I think that is their cab,” he shouted.

  The driver nodded, his knuckles tightening around the steering wheel. There was little he could do to prod his way through the clogged traffic, and he anxiously cursed the surrounding vehicles while the seconds ticked by. Finally spotting a break in oncoming traffic, he burst down the left lane for a block, then nosed back into the right lane. The traffic moved forward, and he quickly entered the Caddesi, flooring the accelerator and weaving down the highway like a Formula 1 racer.

  The highway looped around the eastern boundary of Topkapi, hugging the Bosphorus shoreline. Traffic moved briskly as the road turned north then west along the Golden Horn, a natural water inlet that divided the European sector of Istanbul. Pitt looked down at the waterway, admiring a large green dredge ship that was churning the waters off the shoreline. As the cab approached the Galata Bridge, which stretched north over the Golden Horn into the district of Beyoğlu, a throng of cars and buses suddenly materialized, impeding movement to a crawl. The cab exited the Caddesi at the first opportunity, snaking down to a ferry dock near the base of the bridge.

  “Boğaz Hatti dock at Eminönü,” the cabdriver announced. “The next ferry departure will be right over there,” he added with a wave of his arm. “If you hurry, you can just catch it.”

  Pitt paid the driver, adding a healthy tip, then surveyed the road behind them as he exited the cab. Seeing no sign of the orange sedan, he casually escorted Loren to the ticket window.

  “You just can’t stay away from the water, can you?” Loren said, eyeing several large ferryboats on the waterfront.

  “I thought a relaxing cruise on the Bosphorus was just what the doctor ordered.”

  “Actually, that does sound enticing,” she admitted, relishing some fresh-air sightseeing. “Just so long as we’re alone and there’s lunch involved.”

  Pitt grinned. “Lunch is guaranteed. And I think we’ve lost our friends.”

  Purchasing their tickets, they walked down one of the busy docks and boarded a modern passenger ferry, grabbing some seats by a window. A triple blast of the ship’s horn signaled its departure before the gangway was pulled aside.

  On the road out front, the orange sedan screeched to a halt, its two passengers flying out of the side doors. Bypassing the ticket booth, they sprinted down to the dock, only to watch the ferryboat churn into the strait. Panting to catch his breath, Sunglasses stared at the ferry, then turned to the Persian.

  “Find us a boat,” he hissed. “Now!”

  AT TWENTY MILES IN LENGTH and seldom more than a mile wide, the Bosphorus Strait was at once one of the world’s busiest and most scenic waterways. Dividing the heart of Istanbul, it had been a historic trading route, utilized by the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines. In modern times, it had become a major conduit for Russia, Georgia, and other countries bordering the Black Sea. Tankers, freighters, and containerships constantly clogged the narrow waterway that split the European and Asian continents.