Blown Circuit Read online

  I counted the cross streets carefully as I continued down the crowded boulevard. I waited for the volume of foot traffic to dissipate, but it kept getting busier. Istanbul was a metropolis of eighteen million people and it looked like a million of them were ambling along the congested streets of Taxsim Square. Maybe two million. A guy in a red hat was selling goat milk ice cream which he folded with his steel spatula into waffle cones. It must have been good, because he had a line of fifty people waiting at his little cart. Up ahead, a narrow alley intersected the boulevard.

  Lights were strung over the alley’s entrance, the high walls making it look more like a canyon than a thoroughfare. I waded into the crowd. Turkish pop ballads blazed through the night air, while tables filled with people narrowed the available walking corridor to the point that all I could do was go with the flow. A look to either side of me revealed that the interiors of the bars lining the alley were packed as well. The fire marshal, if there was one, wouldn’t have been happy.

  I held my backpack in front of me, not so much walking as being carried through the crush of humanity until, finally, I saw what I was looking for—the Kadicoy Bar, a sign in purple neon script announced its presence. I took a breath and steered right, stepping between two high tables outside the bar. Unsurprisingly, people jammed the place, both inside and out. I didn’t know whether it was luck or the incredulous expression on my face, but I soon felt a tap on my shoulder. A table of three well-dressed women and two men were offering me a seat. I took them up on it. It was the perfect opportunity to regroup.

  My new table-mates introduced themselves in Turkish. I caught the name Yousef and Nilay and not much else. They then poured me a beer from a frosted glass pitcher. I raised a toast to them and took a sip of the honey-brown ale. Not a huge pull, because I wanted to keep my wits about me, but enough to wet my throat. The beer was light on my tongue in the hot night, hoppy, but refreshing. I looked around the table. My new bar mates looked to be in their late twenties. Button-down collars on the men and halter tops on the women. I didn’t think they were couples, just friends, and I didn’t know why they had adopted me, but it gave me a chance to scope the place out. I needed to meet my contact and, according to my watch, I needed to do it soon.

  “America?” one of the Turkish guys said.

  “Canada,” I said.

  Because I was effectively impersonating Jean-Marc, I was also operating under his old cover. That cover said he was from Montreal, though I hoped dearly that he hadn’t shared the legend with his contact. Things were sketchy enough without me having to rhapsodize about the glory of hockey and gravy-soaked French fries.

  “Canada, Canada,” the response echoed around the table. The women were attractive and on any other night I might have lingered. But I was on task. I looked inside the bar and the mystery as to why I was so readily offered a seat was solved. I hadn’t simply stepped into a regular evening at a regular bar. I’d walked into a private event. Apparently, I was meeting my contact at a henna party.

  Henna parties and their ilk weren’t something I’d learned about in training. There was, however, a photo of one in my guidebook. From what I’d read, the events were essentially the Turkish version of a bachelorette party with henna, the deep brown, plant-based dye, thrown in. The bride and her unmarried friends blobbed the dye on their hands and there was plenty of singing and dancing. They were traditionally female-only affairs, but like any tradition, I supposed it was open to interpretation. Mystery solved, I smiled a thank-you to my companions and rose, shuffling my way inside the tall doors of the bar.

  I entered the double-high space to be greeted by a booming Turkish pop ballad and a number of older woman sitting in a group. On the other side of the older ladies, young women danced wildly while others smeared henna on their hands. The henna paste went on a bright orange, but had already darkened to a reddish-brown on some of the women. I noticed two chairs covered in lush red satin fabric with gold trim. They were thrones. And when I turned back around I saw the queen of the evening—the woman who was about to change my life.

  Chapter 16

  I KNEW THAT she was my contact without even seeing her face because I saw the sun-shaped golden brooch in her luxuriant long hair. She had indicated she would be wearing it in her reply to Jean-Marc. What she hadn’t indicated was that she would also be wearing a red veil which told me that, in addition to being my contact, she was also the bride to be. She looked to be in her late twenties and, aside from the veil, she wore a close-fitting cream pantsuit, the honey brown of the back of her hands visible from behind. The outfit seemed an odd mix of the traditional and the modern, but I kept my focus on the tactical. So far, all I was certain of was one exit. I didn’t want to get stuck in the crowd if my cover was blown.

  Then my contact turned and I felt the ground shift below my feet. Every working supposition I had relied on was suspect. Every notion of risk was squared because I had met my contact before, and I knew that it was next to impossible that my previous meeting with her had been an accident. She was the server I had run into in the bakery that morning, and after considering the astronomical odds of us just happening to bump into each other for a second time, I have to admit that my next thought was that she cleaned up pretty good.

  She was radiant, her dark eyes reflecting the elaborate lighting as I strode forward. Jewel’s laced her veil. She looked fantastic, but I was concerned. Had she been surveilling me all along? It certainly looked that way. The problem was, I had no idea who this woman was or what she knew. One way to find out. She took a seat on the farthest throne and I decided to make the point of contact easy. Formal and sweet. A brief pass and we’d be done. But it wasn’t as easy as I had hoped because the groom sat down on the throne beside her, a golden crown on his waxy, balding head, his fingers stained orange from the henna.

  The groom was older than her with a ruddy, pockmarked face and a broad build. What was left of his black hair was carefully combed back. He looked pleased with himself and more than a little inebriated. But the wine couldn’t hide the cruel cast to his eyes. Or the broken slant to his nose. I guessed him to be in his late thirties to early forties. His shoulders were wide, and his large hands had seen rough, physical work. If things went south, he could prove a tough opponent.

  I stepped forward through the crowd. Nothing wrong with wishing the bride well. She put out her hand and another woman knelt with a silver tray of henna in her hand. She tapped it onto the bride’s palm and I admired my contact’s slender, tanned fingers. Showtime. I walked right past the groom, glancing at his bride. And she tripped me. Just like that. And though I’d trained myself to expect plenty, a pretty girl can always stack the deck. I nearly fell face forward onto my hands, but she reached out, grabbing me by my right arm.

  “Dikkatli olun,” she said.

  She helped me up, and as she did, I heard a quick message in my ear.

  “Front of the bar, five minutes.”

  I straightened myself.

  “Teşekkürler,” I said, which I knew was the Turkish word for thank you.

  I smiled, embarrassed, and continued on my way, looping around to the back of the bar and down a short corridor. I wanted to check the exits and using the washroom was a reasonable explanation for me being back there. I was, after all, just another lost backpacker. I passed what looked like a storeroom on my right before hitting the men’s room immediately behind it. Beyond that, there was what looked like a street exit at the end of the hall.

  I stepped inside the men’s room and admired the handsome, wall-high porcelain urinals. They looked like they’d been pulled straight out of the workers’ revolution, their highly polished surfaces scratched yet still gleaming in the halogen spotlights. My mind was reeling. My contact had been surveilling me. That was a fact. But it didn’t mean that she knew I was impersonating the mole. It did, however, strongly suggest that she knew more about me than I did her.

  I zipped up and began to notice that I was thinking less
and less clearly. Was it the beer? I didn’t know. I’d only had a small pull. Still, by the time I had washed up and returned to the corridor, I was definitely not feeling right. By that point, however, it wasn’t the feeling in my head I was focused on. It was the thick-necked apes in suits. Four of them guarded the mouth of the corridor leading into the bar. They didn’t motion to me or otherwise impede me, but by the way they treated my exit, I knew that something was wrong.

  I stepped past them and toward the front of the bar. Things were different now and it wasn’t just in my head. The two thrones sat empty, and all the old ladies had moved to the far side of the bar, as though they had been corralled away. I tried to fight the foggy feeling I felt building around me, but every time I attempted to clear my head, it only got worse. It had to have been something in the beer. I had been drugged and I needed to stage a tactical retreat. Quickly.

  I looped my thumb under the right shoulder of my backpack as I headed for the door. The double-wide entry was open, a narrow beam of light extending across the concrete floor from the outside. Everyone was still out at the tables in front and it took me a moment to determine what was strange about the situation. The thought dawned on me a little slower than normal, maybe a lot slower, but it was the floor. I could see the floor, whereas before it had been a mass of dancing feet. I smiled briefly at the realization before a broad-shouldered man stepped directly into my path.

  I recognized him, but barely. It was the groom. Up close I saw that he hadn’t shaved for at least a day. His oft-broken nose looked even more out of joint than before. He was an arm’s length in front of me. A perfect setup really. That’s what karate is all about. In theory, the first move is always defensive but, in reality, karate is a striking sport. It’s just as suited to an offensive first move. The quick strike and takedown. I could lunge in with a straight jab followed by a leg sweep and have the guy on the floor before he could spit. Or, alternatively, I could sweep my pack off my back with my right arm and take him in the head with a wide swing. It wouldn't put him down, but it would give me time to get out of there and regroup.

  But I did none of the above. Instead, I froze.

  Chapter 17

  I HAD BEEN dosed and I knew it. Flunitrazepam or some other kind of sedative hypnotic. It wasn’t as if I was woozy or transfixed by a rainbow of light but, like a bad dream, my thoughts and actions were disconnected. In the end, my coordination didn’t come together in time. And instead of pressing my advantage, I watched the groom step forward. He followed through with a straight-arm to my chest. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t step aside in time. The flat of his palm connected with my upper body, propelling me backward.

  I was surprised I managed to stay on my feet, but I did, with a little help from the apes in suits behind me. They caught me under the shoulders and kept me upright, but I wasn’t reassured. I was worried. My vision had blurred and the overhead lights were rapidly disintegrating into a smattering of red and blue. I didn’t know how long I could hold it together let alone fight off my assailants.

  I struggled to keep my eyes focused as I watched an angel in white approach. It was my contact. The bride. She swam in my field of vision, her dark eyes all-knowing, her thick, luminous hair bouncing as she walked. Then she screamed something in Turkish. Or maybe it was English. I thought I understood, at any rate.

  “What are you doing?” she shouted.

  “Stay out of this.”

  It was the groom who had spoken. I could just see him out of the corner of my eye.

  “I will not stay out of it.”

  “You will,” he said.

  He pushed her aside and she responded with an equally aggressive shove. Then there was more screaming in Turkish and the two guys holding me under the armpits dragged me farther into the back of the bar, the other two taking up the rear. The lights flickered and the next thing I knew, I was in a back room surrounded by aluminum beer kegs and liquor. It smelled of stale ale and my captors’ leathery cologne, and if I had any illusions of things going my way, I gave them up when I saw the groom, five inches from my face, his five o’clock shadow nearly tickling my eyelids.

  The guy snorted, a big rollicking laugh that revealed his prematurely yellowing teeth. Then he moved his head back and I felt the guys behind me tighten their grip. I knew what was coming next, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Even if I could coordinate my legs to kick, I wouldn’t get far, not with the two thugs behind me pulling my arms out of my sockets. Because I couldn’t fight it, I smiled and turned my cheek.

  Wham! I took the blow straight to the side of my face. Which was better than my nose or teeth, at least. I knew it would hurt tomorrow, if there was a tomorrow, but for the time being I was happy to have retained my smile. Whatever they had drugged me with, they hadn’t done a very thorough job. I was compromised, but I wasn’t out. I did, however, make a mental note to be more careful about accepting beer from strangers.

  “You punch like a girl,” I said.

  There was some chatter in Turkish, the big apes behind me talking to the groom. Then he looked directly at me.

  “What did you say?” he said in a thick Turkish accent.

  I laughed. It must have been the drugs, because the situation wasn’t funny.

  “I said, you hit like a girl. A nine-year-old. In a panda-print dress.”

  I don’t know what made me think of pandas, but the groom wasn’t amused. He looked as if he was going to hit me again, but my vision was swimming so hard it was difficult to tell what he was going to do. However, the next thing I heard was a crash and, instead of a fist, I was staring down the end of a broken whiskey bottle. Lovely. I had once heard that a jagged whiskey bottle was no more than a movie prop, because American liquor bottles were too thick to break into a reasonable weapon, but whatever I had heard clearly didn’t apply to the Turkish variety. They were just thick enough. The groom ran the sharp, uneven glass under my chin.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  I didn’t answer, but I could honestly say, I had no clue. I didn’t know anything at that moment, except that my head felt like it was swimming in an Olympic-sized pool with a disco ball hanging above. I was completely disoriented.

  “Do you know who I am?” he repeated.

  “A gorilla with a wand?” I laughed, drool dripping from the corner of my mouth.

  I knew it wasn’t funny, but if the guy was going to drug me, did he really expect a straight answer too? I guessed not because, instead of continuing the conversation, he lifted the bottle high and brought its knife-edge down in a low, fast swipe. I must have been with it enough to turn my head out of the way, because I felt the bottle catch my chin, but just barely. Then I felt something else. Like when you cut yourself shaving. Blood.

  The other two apes who didn’t already have hold of me, grasped my head on either side, holding it steady. I was starting to realize just how bad things were looking. Then I saw that my assailant had raised the amber bottle again. Its jagged bottom edge glistened in the light of the low-hanging bulb and I knew I was in trouble. I was about to get my throat slit by a very angry monkey.

  “Azad!” a woman’s voice yelled.

  My assailant looked away and I heard more yelling. First from the guys in the suits, then from my assailant. Then the woman in white entered. By that point, my vision was so blurred that she had a full-blown halo around her, like an angel of mercy.

  “Why do you do this, Azad?” she said.

  So the guy’s name was Azad. Good to know, but I still had no clue who he was.

  “You know him?” Azad asked.

  “I know that the man I will marry would not do this.”

  There was a pause, then angry silence as I watched the light filter through the jagged whiskey bottle.

  “You know him,” Azad said.

  “No!” the woman screamed

  “You brought him here,” Azad said.

  “I did not.”

  “You stay out or it will b
e your turn next.”

  That’s when the angel in white raised her hand to prevent the bottle from coming down. The goons on either side of me let go of my head and leapt forward. And then holy fire rained down from the sky. Yellow and orange blasted out from the angel’s halo. I only realized that it was muzzle flash when I heard the accompanying shot. It was loud, almost deafening in the small space. Three more shots followed in rapid sequence, one after the other. The amber bottle fell to the floor, followed by the hand that was holding it, and the next thing I knew, the angel had pulled my arm over her shoulder and was hustling me, as quickly as my near-useless legs would allow, out the door.

  I remember seeing a dark corridor, and then an alley, and then I was on the back of some kind of motorcycle. The woman in white told me to, “Hold tight.” I remember that part distinctly because I wondered how in the world I was going to do that?

  I heard a rumble and a low whine as she started the bike, and I draped myself forward, my arms around her. I know that I nearly slid off the seat as she popped the clutch, but I must have managed to hang on. After that, the evening was a blur of warm wind and traffic and streetlights, and then nothing at all as I passed into unconsciousness, the Turkish night slowly slipping away.

  Chapter 18

  THE THING THAT woke me was the bird. Sure it was bright out and my eyelids could barely keep out the sun, but it was the bird that got me. Each of its innocent tweets bludgeoning my sore, bruised head like a jackhammer. I cautiously opened an eye. My contact was sitting there. She held a handgun in her lap. A matte-black SIG Sauer P226. She looked like she had fieldstripped it and had just finished cleaning the barrel. Either that or she wanted me awake before she shot me.