The palace shooting broke on Agency France Presse shortly after midnight. By the morning it was world news; Jake’s stay in Turkey was prolonged.
“I need you in Istanbul after all,” Heston told him. “David wants to go big on it. We’re sorting a graphic.”
“Niall … I was there.”
“You get yourself down there and gather some colour. And give us a sidebar about the palace itself for a bit of context.”
“Didn’t you hear me? I was there. It was me they were after.”
The news editor snorted. “Yeah, right.” He paused. “Wait. Are you serious?”
“Yes, I am serious.”
Heston digested it. “Jesus Christ, Jake. Are you ok? What the hell happened?”
“Two people with guns tried to rob us on the way back to our hotel. Then one of them got killed right before our eyes – she got shot in the neck and the head for Christ’s sake.”
“Wait a minute.” Heston’s voice had become tight. “Did you say she?”
“Yes, a redhead. Why?”
“The Guardian’s got an exclusive about an MI6 agent being shot dead. They can’t or won’t disclose the exact location, but they do say it was in the Mediterranean theatre. And they report two specific details. It was a she. And she was shot in the neck and the head.”
Jake had turned haggard. “Well, it’s got to be the same woman, right?”
“Almighty coincidence if not. Their source is unnamed. But it must be copper-bottomed, because they’ve plastered it all over the front page. It’s causing a heck of a stir here. As far as anyone knows she’s the first MI6 officer ever to have been killed by hostile action.”
“Are MI6 confirming?”
“The death, yes. But the government’s official position is to wander up and down whistling innocently.” Heston exhaled. “We’ve got a hell of a story on our hands if her death’s linked to what happened in the Topkapi. It’ll be a proper shit-storm.”
“I should’ve called last night,” said Jake. “I wasn’t thinking straight. I –”
“Not worried about that now,” Heston cut in. “Just worried about what we’re going to do with this stonking exclusive of yours. Tell me, Jake, what do you think is really going on here?”
“I reckon it’s to do with this dig I’ve been covering. Earlier in the day we discovered an inscription. We copied it – and we were being held at gunpoint within the hour.”
“Give me strength,” Heston snapped. “Not this again. Biggest security story this newspaper’s had all year and who’s on the scene? Mr Forces of Darkness.”
“Just hear me out.” Jake noticed the assertiveness in his own voice. “I’m not trying to say this fortune-telling stuff actually works, of course not. But can we completely rule out that MI6 thinks that it works? Accept for the sake of argument that MI6 believes the Etruscans did have some sort of prophetic ability. At a stroke all the strange little things that have been happening make sense. Britton thinking he was being followed. That post-box being emptied at the wrong time. An MI6 agent trying to accost me and ending up being killed by God-knows-who. Then us being chased by men with sodding machine guns. All the pieces fall into place, Niall.”
“Let’s deal in facts, not theories.” Heston’s breath was hot on the receiver. “Fact one, an MI6 agent was shot dead and you may have witnessed it. Fact two, all she did was walk towards you – we don’t actually know she was going to molest you in any way. Fact three, you were chased by gunmen. But they were probably just trying to eliminate eyewitnesses.”
“What if the guys trying to kill us were MI6 too?”
“That’s the single most libellous thing I’ve ever heard one of my reporters dream up and we’d both be in front of the High Court if even a whiff of it made it into print.”
Jake was silenced.
“I’m not running any of this Etruscan stuff, Jake, I’m just not. But you’re alive, that’s the main thing.” Heston mellowed. “And you did good. We’ll lead the news agenda all week with this. Look, I’m going to get Marvin to put some calls in.” Marvin Whyte was the security correspondent. “Hopefully he’ll be able to get a steer from the Home Office, confirm the redhead and the dead spook are the same person.”
“Then he’ll take the story! Bloody hell, I could have died, Niall!”
“Ok, ok, your byline,” said Heston. “I give you my word. But you need help standing it all up, and you don’t have the contacts to do it. In the meantime I think you need to get your arse back here, for your own security. You can hardly go wandering around in Istanbul after what’s happened. This is serious shit now, Jake. I don’t want a reporter getting killed on my watch.”
Jake picked up a newspaper on the way back to the hotel. The English-language Hürriyet Daily News had splashed on the Topkapi shootout. What else? He read the account with consternation. The story sprawled from pages one to five, yet there was no mention of a redhead killed at the scene. Whoever she was, her body had been removed. Then something else caught his eye and a jolt of fright ran through him, strong enough to produce nausea. In the bottom right-hand corner of page five was a photograph of Dr Adnan Gul; Jake read the story with growing fury.
A leading academic at the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul was found hanged this morning, police have revealed. Dr Adnan Gul was discovered by his cleaner at the small apartment where he lived alone in Sulukule, western Istanbul. Colleagues said he showed no prior signs of depression, and his apparent suicide came as a complete shock.