CHAPTER 42

Istanbul, Turkey

August

BY EVENING, THEY HAD an initial plan in place, and Reece had a new wardrobe. It was a bit contemporary for his taste, but he convinced himself that it was a form of camouflage. Freddy had wandered down to the consulate’s detachment of Marines and located a lance corporal who served as the de facto barber for the security element; nearly every military unit had someone who made a few extra bucks cutting hair. Reece was a bit nervous given the “high and tight” standards of the Corps, but the kid from Chicago did a great job. Reece emerged looking less like a biblical character and more like a dapper city dweller with collar-length hair and a neatly trimmed beard.

“You look like a hipster” was Freddy’s only comment.

The next morning, Reece traded his faded T-shirt for a fitted blue oxford along with dark jeans, a tan linen sport coat, and brown leather boots. The remainder of his new wardrobe went into a nylon duffel along with some of his casual clothing and workout gear. A tan messenger bag contained various smaller items, including spare magazines and a suppressor for the SIG 365 concealed inside his waistband. A newly issued iPhone was equipped with various useful apps along with an extremely sophisticated VPN, which made his communications as secure as the NSA could make them.

When he climbed into the back of the Mercedes SUV alongside Freddy in the underground parking garage, he made the conscious mental shift from James Reece: former SEAL commando and CIA contractor to James Donovan: aspiring novelist.

The driver, a local CIA case officer, took a circuitous route from the consulate to the Gayrettepe metro station, making frequent turns to ensure that they weren’t being followed. Freddy bid Reece good luck as the SUV approached the curb.

“I’ll see you when I see you. ”

He rode down the escalator into the modern subway station and made a show of examining the arrival and departure screens. He pulled his phone from his pocket and pretended to read a text message before taking the up escalator back to the street level among a gaggle of arriving passengers. A line of four yellow Hyundai taxis sat outside the station’s entrance and Reece motioned for the lead driver to open his trunk. Stowing his duffel inside, he retained the smaller bag, showing the driver a printed reservation for the Tomtom Suites.

This was Reece’s first time seeing Istanbul’s grandeur in daylight. The historic city of seventeen million residents had been the seat of both the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, bridging the continents and thereby connecting the world. Their route took them from the modern neighborhood with towering high-rises, south until they turned to parallel the Bosphorus, connecting the Black Sea to the north with the Sea of Marmara to the south. This side of the water was Europe, the other Asia. They passed an arena on their right and massive cruise ship terminals on their left. Reece craned his neck like an excited tourist, which, fortunately for him, fit his cover story.

After a scenic twenty-minute drive, the cab stopped in front of an elegant white structure with black shutters. The Tomtom Suites, which was built into the steep slope of the hill on which it was constructed, looked more Dutch than Mediterranean in its architecture and reminded Reece of Cape Town. A young uniform-clad bellman opened the cab door and welcomed Reece to the property. Reece made a show of paying the driver in U. S. bills, leaving a hefty tip. The man smiled and thanked Reece in vastly improved English and, seeing the wad of cash, the bellman’s eyes lit up too. He scurried to the open trunk to retrieve Reece’s luggage and led him through the hotel’s glass-canopied entrance. He stood aside as Reece approached the front desk, handing him a U. S. twenty-dollar bill. There are few better ways to attract attention than by throwing money around.

The hotel staff were efficient and courteous, obviously pleased by the ten-day reservation. When asked if he needed assistance with his bags, he almost spit out his default “no thank you” but decided that a guy like James Donovan wouldn’t mind someone carrying his luggage for him. Another twenty dollars ensured that the staff would remain interested.

The spacious room was on the third floor with an amazing view of tiled rooftops, minaret towers, and the churning waters of the Bosphorus. The parquet wooden floors stretched the length of the suite, with a living area arranged at the foot of the king-sized bed. A large impressionistic painting that appeared to depict the city’s skyline hung above the headboard and, through the sliding-glass wall that separated it from the living area, he could see that the bathroom was covered in dappled white marble from floor to ceiling. Reece much preferred his humble hooch in Mozambique.

The SEAL turned intelligence operative took a small device from his messenger bag that was disguised to look like an external hard drive. It was, in fact, a countersurveillance device designed to detect hidden listening devices and cameras. There was no reason to suspect that he was under surveillance, government or otherwise, but one didn’t make assumptions in this line of work. After sweeping the room without any indication of an active bug, Reece returned the device to his bag. He entered the nine-digit passcode into his iPhone and sent Freddy a text message:

In room 307, view to the southeast. All good.

Within thirty seconds, his phone vibrated.

Good copy. 5 min out if you need me.

Freddy and the case officer who had driven them from the consulate were set up in a safe house several blocks to the northeast. From their position, they could act as backup in case Reece ran into trouble and could also feed him information as it came in from local sources and from the various information-gathering assets at the U. S. government’s disposal. Their position was close enough to respond in case of an emergency but far away enough so as not to arouse suspicion. It was time to rely on the time-honored attribute for which snipers were known: patience.

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