Part 7 (1/2)

She started and looked up. A painfully earnest young man with a mop of heavy coal-black hair stood respectfully back from her chair. ”Yes?” she said.

”Curator Bahceli would like to speak with you in his office immediately, if it is convenient to you.”

Bahceli had been more than kind in granting Annja access to the museum's special collection, as well as giving her a personal tour. If he wanted to see her, the polite and politic thing to do would be to respond promptly.

”Certainly,” she said, rising. She felt a brief tug of concern over leaving her computer unattended. But the reading room was closed to the public. And Bahceli, for all his jovial manner, did not strike Annja as the sort who'd put up with pilferage in his department. It was a cardinal sin in such an inst.i.tution, for obvious reasons. She walked briskly back to his office.

But when she rapped on the open door, then peeked around the frame, the office was empty.

A dreadful certainty she'd been tricked stuck in the base of her throat. She turned and walked back to the reading room as quickly as she could without making a scene that would raise questions she didn't want to answer-or leave hanging.

Her computer and von Hoiningen's open journal still sat on the table. Disappearing out the far door of the long, narrow room she saw a familiar, expensively clad figure whose well-schooled grace did not conceal a certain walk-through-a-wall thrustfulness to its gait.

”Easy,” Annja said, as if cursing.

The figure vanished from sight. Annja sprinted after. She got all the way out into the warm daylight with nothing to show but a wisp of expensive scent and a suspicion of mocking laughter hanging in the air.

She made herself march back to the reading room, neither das.h.i.+ng nor slouching in defeat. Rudolf von Hoiningen's aggravating notebook was intact. A surprisingly quick diagnostic rea.s.sured her that no nasty software had been quickly and covertly installed on her computer.

”But it's not like there's no such thing as a digital camera,” Annja muttered.

She was sure the little witch of a pot hunter had photographed the relevant pages to translate or digest at her leisure. Annja knew it with bitter certainty. Not that Easy didn't speak German, along, apparently, with every other known language and an alien tongue or two. She probably had a photographic memory to boot.

Cautious, here, Annja told herself. Let's not wallow too deeply in paranoia.

But even paranoids have enemies, she thought.

And once more hers had gotten the better of her.

12.

”Annja! Annja Creed! What a delightful surprise.”

On the steps of the museum Annja stopped and turned at the greeting.

”Giancarlo!” she exclaimed, with a rush of genuine pleasure. Then, frowning slightly, she said, ”This is quite a coincidence.”

His dark, lean, handsome face lit with a smile. ”Some might call it kismet. As they do here, come to think of it. I might call it synchronicity.”

He came forward holding out his hands to her. He was dressed in that expensively casual way that only the wealthy can pull off. His hair was slicked back seal-like.

”But really, it's not such a great coincidence after all, is it? We share a profession, and many particular interests. My researches have brought me to Istanbul. Naturally, as a Mediterranean archaeologist, I gravitate here. I can only presume you have done the same,” he said.

”Yes,” she replied guardedly.

”Of course, you are a Renaissance scholar,” he said, taking her hands in his firm, strong grip. Despite the humid heat off the Bosporus his palms were dry. She envied him; she herself had been outdoors less than a minute and felt as if she'd just emerged from the shower with her clothes on. Autumn or not, cold nights or not, it still got plenty warm during the day. ”The Turks were the great enemy of Renaissance Europe. So naturally at some point in your studies you likewise find yourself here.”

He said it with such conviction that she didn't have the heart to disabuse him. She accepted a warm hug and a peck on her cheek.

She smiled at him. ”It's good to see you again,” she said, ”no matter the reason.”

”Will you join me for a cup of coffee?” he said. ”The coffee here is excellent. But what am I saying? Of course it is. It's Turkey!”

He laughed delightedly. She laughed with him. She always appreciated a man who could laugh at himself.

”SO THAT'S WHERE THINGS stand,” Annja said. She sat slumped in a chair in the air-conditioned comfort of a cafe two blocks from the Museum. ”Every clue I find seems just to add another link to the chain. I never seem to get closer.”

She shook her head. ”And the most substantial clue I've managed to locate I just handed to the world's most notorious pot hunter on a silver platter.”

Giancarlo nodded sympathetically. He had listened raptly as she poured out her story to him-minus the details of exactly what it was she sought.

”Surely it's not so bad, Annja, my dear,” he told her.

”But it is,” she said, tossing back her hair. A ceiling fan swooshed overhead. Annja wasn't sure whether it was needed to circulate the refrigerated air or just there because it was an expected element of Turkish atmosphere. ”I think-I think people have been killed over this already,” she concluded.

”But you have the information you needed, do you not?”

”Well-I have leads to follow. And I seem to have confirmation that what I've come chasing clear across Europe is actually real. That's encouraging, anyway. But I just feel so frustrated. I keep running and running after this...thing, and I never seem to get any closer.”

”But you have gotten all there is to be gained in Istanbul, yes?” he asked.

Reluctantly she nodded. ”I'm afraid so.”

He stood with an abruptness that belied the languid ease with which he'd sat and listened to her outpourings of woe. ”Well, then! You are off duty. Is it not time to relax and put your troubles aside? This is a beautiful city, full of history that you are rarely qualified to appreciate. At least let me show some of it to you and take your mind off your troubles.”

”Sure,” she said, and stood to join him. ”That sounds wonderful.”

WITH GIANCARLO AS HER laughing, knowledgeable and attentive guide they took in the sights of the great ancient city. Annja thoroughly enjoyed being a tourist for the day.

”In 1534,” Giancarlo said that evening, with candlelight dancing in his eyes, ”the sultan, Suleiman, heard that the young widow of the count of Fundi was the most beautiful woman in all Europe. She was also renowned for her wit and erudition, although it is possible these mattered less to the sultan. So he sent his great corsair captain Barbarossa to kidnap her. They attacked in the middle of the night. As her family retainers battled to hold them off she leaped on a horse, rode down several would-be abductors and galloped off to safety in her nightgown.”

The conversation of the other diners was soft susurration in the background. Through the great window beside the couple the fabled ancient city tumbled down to the water from seven hills almost as famous as Rome's. Its lights made jeweled streaks across the slowly rippling waters of the Golden Horn.

”A woman after my own heart,” Annja said.

They'd taken in a few sights such as the Blue Mosque, and a few nondescript stubs of wall, here incorporated into later structures, there holding up green slopes, that Annja's escort told her dated from Lygos, the first port settlement, which predated even Byzantium's founding by the Greeks of Megara. At evening they found themselves sitting in a pleasantly upscale Turkish restaurant.

Annja felt a strange vibration. She frowned, wondering if she were somehow getting dizzy. Then she noticed ice tinkling in gla.s.ses and silverware rattling. A French tourist couple across the dimly lit restaurant looked around in wild-eyed dismay; a middle-aged j.a.panese couple sitting near Giancarlo and Annja continued eating without paying visible attention.