Izmir, Turkey, twenty-four hours later
The Janissary fort that guards the harbor of Izmir on the northern point isn’t really old, by Mediterranean standards. It was built in the late seventeenth century to satisfy an ambitious Agha, with a carved marble arch at the gate proclaiming the builder’s allegiance to Allah and carefully built bastions illustrating the use of the most recent European advances in fortress design.
It hasn’t been garrisoned or maintained since the time of Ataturk. The brickwork has piles of dark red dust at the foot of every wall; the western bastion has sagged away as the beach under it erodes, and the pier where the supplies for the garrison were landed is slipping into the sea, unused except by curious boaters and a few smugglers. The marble arch remains intact, and on a wet winter’s night it is still dry in the sentry boxes built into the gateway.
It was raining hard.
“I’m surprised you waited,” Dukas called as he walked carefully up the concrete path to the gate. He had a flashlight in his hand, and he moved like a man using his last resources of energy.
Piat offered his hand. “I’m surprised you came,” he said. “Where’s Craik?”
Dukas shrugged. “What have you got for me?”
Piat laughed. It was meant to be a chuckle, but it developed a shrill pitch too quickly. “Nothing,” he said. “Maybe an apology.”
“Yeah?” Dukas was intrigued rather than angry. “Where’s the girl?”
“Gone,” he said. Then he laughed, and this time the sound had some authenticity. “She took my laptop and left. She sold the cup to my fucking buyer for a lousy million dollars.”
“Jesus,” Dukas grunted. “I’d have thought ten million was more the mark.”
Piat shrugged, the motion of his shoulders just visible against the pale gray of the arch. “The buyer told her it’s a fake.” He took another drag. “Or so I hear.”
Dukas nodded to himself. “Will it come back on the market?”
“Not a chance in hell. If it were a fake—maybe. But it’s not.” Piat sat on the stone bench provided by the Agha of Janissaries.
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t know that the world is round, but I’m pretty fucking sure all the same.”
Dukas could see that there was a long, low boat tied up on the slanting remains of the old stone pier. He watched the deck. “I’d be happier if you’d got ten million dollars.”
Piat chuckled. “Me, too. But I’m not going to rant. I was going to sell her to you. She just got me first. And she left me a little memento—so here’s to her. Fair’s fair.” “What did you want?” Dukas asked. “When you called?”
Piat said, “My life back. Or rather, just to keep the life I had. I wanted you to take the kids, and give me a passport in exchange.” He made a motion with his hand, lost in the dark. “And to warn somebody.”
“Not much chance I’d give you a passport.” Dukas raised a hand in the dark to forestall Piat’s protests. “The world’s changed, Jerry. I doubt I could get a passport if you could give me Bin-Laden.”
“Oh,” Piat said. “Well, fuck that too, then. What happened on the beach?”
Dukas’s turn to shrug. “The Palestinians and the Israelis wasted each other.”
Piat drank from a bottle. Dukas caught the liquorice smell of Ouzo. Piat offered it to him, and he accepted it.
“Like a morality play,” Piat said.
Piat laughed. “You going to drink the whole bottle?”
Dukas handed it back. “Not sure I see the moral.”
Piat shrugged. “No? Well, you wouldn’t. I have a boat to catch.”
Two days later, Piat was back on the hill, running to Thermi.