Chapter Thirty-Three
Istanbul, Turkey
Caspian knew the safe house was bugged. It belonged to the CIA, after all.
But at the moment, he didn’t care. He was grateful for the shelter.
The apartment was on the third floor of a four-story, white-colored building along Günesli Sok, a secondary street in the Cihangir neighborhood of the Beyo?lu district of Istanbul.
They’d ditched the motorcycle about half a mile away, locking the steering but leaving the keys in the ignition.
Caspian had no doubt it had already been stolen and, if they were lucky, was either stripped down for parts or already parked in some underground lot waiting to be sold on the black market.
The news had covered the airport incident briefly, thirty seconds at most. Caspian had tried multiple channels, but nothing else had come up.
Online, there were no headlines and, even better, no images.
That didn’t mean they wouldn’t have to be careful.
Istanbul’s surveillance network was dense, with thousands of CCTV cameras located across the city.
From where they had left the bike, Ranger had directed them on a route that avoided known cameras, and she’d even sent them a marked-up map of blind zones, but it wouldn’t help if they had to leave the safe house in a hurry.
He and Liesel had taken turns sleeping. While one got some shut-eye time, the other kept watch on the grainy video feed streaming from the two miniature cameras mounted discreetly across the street.
The interior of the safe house was sparse, but it was functional.
The fridge was stocked with sodas and bottled water, and the shower had decent water pressure.
In one of the cabinets of the tiny galley-style kitchen, Caspian had found cereal boxes and canned beans.
Even better, Liesel had discovered travel-size toothbrushes and toothpaste under the sink and had declared it a minor miracle.
He was about to open the last can of beans when his phone vibrated. It was a message from Ranger.
Call me. I’ve worked out an egress route for you and Liesel.
He turned toward Liesel, who was sitting cross-legged near the window, sorting through the map on her phone. He held up his phone and gestured for her to follow him to the bathroom. Caspian closed the door and turned on the shower and the faucet.
He dialed Ranger.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“You ever tried cereal and beans in the same bowl?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind. What’ve you got?”
“Sending you a location now. It’s an underground parking garage beneath the Grand Hyatt. It’s not too far from where you are, but it’s still a thirty-minute walk or so.”
Liesel showed the hotel’s location to Caspian on her phone.
“Once you’re there, look for a blue van with diplomatic plates in slot G33,” continued Ranger. “Someone will be waiting for you. I’ll text you the cipher through the encrypted app.”
“To drive us where?” Caspian asked.
“To the German consulate. It’s right next to the Park Bosphorus Hotel. It’s literally a five-minute drive from the Hyatt.”
Caspian frowned, but it was Liesel who asked the question. “Why the Germans? Is the BND involved?”
“There’s too much heat around the American, Canadian, and British embassies.
Turkish counterintelligence flagged them all this morning.
They’ll be watching everyone who goes in and out.
That’s why I don’t want you two to simply walk into the German consulate.
And to answer your other question, Liesel, yes, Nicklas is facilitating everything on the German side. ”
“And what happens after we get to the consulate?” she asked.
“You’ll be taken to Hezarfen Airport,” Ranger said. “It’s a private airfield about thirty miles west of Istanbul.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Caspian asked. “Last time we were at an airport, we almost got caught.”
“This isn’t a commercial airport,” Ranger said. “You’ll be flown out on a private jet Nicklas arranged through the German executive-transport wing. There’s no manifest.”
“Okay . . . and where are we flying to?” Caspian asked, trying to keep up.
“Valencia.”
“Spain?” Liesel asked, stepping closer to the phone. “We’re going back? Why? I thought you wanted us back stateside.”
Caspian had been about to ask the same question, so he listened to Ranger’s reply carefully.
“Veloce, the yacht Caspian spotted, was chartered from a brokerage firm in Valencia. It’s a small operation, and they don’t keep digital records.”
“No online records? You mean everything is still on paper?” Liesel asked.
“Either that or they have a server that’s not connected to the internet. We couldn’t find anything.”
“Can’t you hack into their bank records?” Caspian asked.
“We did. They do have smaller accounts with local banks, but their main accounts seem to be with a Swiss bank. And, as you both know, the Swiss banks are much harder to break into.”
Caspian looked at Liesel, then asked, “Didn’t the Guardia Civil already check the boat out? And what about Hobb? What did you learn?”
“Yeah . . . well, that’s where it gets a bit murky,” Ranger said. “The Guardia Civil sent a patrol boat, but it never came back.”
“Wait . . . what?” Caspian asked.
“It has gone silent, and so did the Veloce.”
Liesel cursed under her breath. Caspian thought this over, then said, “Even if we get our hands on the charter records, it will probably trace back to some shell company.”
“Maybe, but if you can find the hard copy of the contract, I bet the banking info, or at least the name of the Swiss bank they’re dealing with, will be on it.”
“That’s not much to go on,” Liesel said.
“But it’s the only thread we’ve got. For now,” Ranger replied.
Liesel crossed her arms. “You’re working on something else?”
Ranger paused. “Kind of. Too early to share anything with you. But I’ll keep you in the loop. For now, get to the Hyatt’s parking garage. If Veloce truly disappeared, you won’t be the only ones looking for answers.”
Caspian hung up, turned off the shower and the faucet, then met Liesel’s gaze.
“Back to Spain,” he said.
Liesel shook her head. “You got to be kidding me.”
They slipped out of the safe house ten minutes later, blending into Istanbul’s early morning beat just as the first light of dawn streaked the horizon.
The scent of warm, freshly baked sesame bread drifted from a nearby bakery, which made Caspian’s stomach growl, making him wish he had eaten something more substantial than a bowl of beans for breakfast.
The steep streets of Cihangir were slowly coming to life. All around them, vendors rolled their carts into place and shop owners got ready for the day ahead. To Caspian’s right, a boy zipped past on a scooter.
Caspian had visited Istanbul before, but he’d never set foot in that particular neighborhood.
To him, with its cute little streets, squares, and alleys, Cihangir felt like the most European sector of the city, though he couldn’t believe how many stray cats there were.
In front of him, the Bosphorus was visible in the distance, like a ribbon of steel cutting the city in two.
The Grand Hyatt Istanbul, and its underground parking garage, was just beyond the Gezi Park and the bustle of Taksim Square.
But instead of heading directly there, Caspian and Liesel weaved a meandering course through secondary streets and pedestrian alleys, doing their best to stay away from the CCTV cameras Ranger had identified.
They hugged the corners and paused before each intersection, and Caspian kept his eyes scanning for anything that felt off.
As they made their next turn, Caspian slowed.
A bit farther on, two police officers stood near a tram stop.
They weren’t talking, they were looking down the street.
One held a tablet angled up toward the foot traffic.
He grabbed Liesel’s arm and pulled her close to him and into the recessed doorway of a closed antiques shop.
“Two cops. They’re scanning for faces,” he said.
She peered past him, then nodded. “I bet they’re looking for a man and a woman,” she said.
“Right. And there are probably more of them. Some of them in plain clothes,” Caspian said, glancing down the hill toward the Bosphorus.
“We need to split up, Casp. They’re looking for a couple. We’ll have a better shot at reaching the Hyatt if we separate.”
He nodded, knowing she was right. But he didn’t like it. And that was a problem too.
Stop being overprotective. She can handle herself.
Caspian pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Okay. Let’s link up,” he said, sliding a Bluetooth earpiece into his ear.
Liesel did the same.
“I’ll take the Taksim route,” Caspian said. “I’ll head up through the square, past the Cumhuriyet Aniti, then east down Mete Caddesi. I’ll cut through the pedestrian path near the Dolapdere lights and circle around to the Hyatt’s service entrance.”
Liesel looked at her phone, using the map Ranger had sent them. “I’ll loop west and cut through the antique district.”
“This shouldn’t take us more than twenty-five minutes,” Caspian said, dialing her number.
Liesel accepted the call, then she looked at him, holding his gaze for a few seconds. Without a word, she leaned in and kissed him. For a moment, and for the first time since they had fled the airport, everything slowed, and the noise in Caspian’s mind faded.
Liesel broke the kiss, stepped back, and pressed her hand on his heart. “See you in twenty, okay?”
Then, before he could respond, she turned and walked away. As he watched her turn right at the next intersection, one thought stayed with him, an unshakable whisper at the edge of his mind.
Your luck is about to run out.