I hurried upstairs. In the bathroom, I completed the cigarette-packet message. Then I went through the motions of “cleaning up”-Tufan already had my fingerprints-and returned to Fischer’s room.
At a quarter to three Harper drove the car from the garage to the courtyard and I loaded the bags. There wasn’t room for all of them in the luggage compartment, so some had to go on the floor by the back seat.
At three, Harper, Miller, and I went up to Miller’s room. There, Miller and I took our shirts off and swathed ourselves in the tackle, Harper assisting and rearranging things until he was satisfied that nothing would show. I had the spring hooks of the sling hanging down inside my trouser legs. It was dreadfully uncomfortable. Harper made me walk up and down so that he could see that all was in order.
“You look as if you’ve wet your pants,” he complained. “Can’t you walk more naturally?”
“The hooks keep hitting one another.”
“Well, wear one higher and one lower.”
After further adjustments, he was satisfied and we went downstairs to be inspected by Miss Lipp. She had fault to find with Miller-he had developed the same trouble with the blocks as I had had with the hooks-and while they were putting it right I managed to transfer the cigarette packet from my hip to my shirt pocket, so that it would be easier to get at when the time came.
Fischer was getting edgy now. The bandages prevented his wearing a wrist watch and he kept looking at Miller’s. Miller suddenly got irritated.
“You cannot help, so do not get in the way,” he snapped.
“It is time we were leaving. After four-thirty, they count the people going in.”
“I’ll tell you when it’s time to leave,” Harper said. “If you can’t keep still, Hans, go sit in the car.”
Fischer sulked, while Miller returned to his bedroom for final adjustments. Harper turned to me.
“You’re looking warm, Arthur. Better you don’t drive with all that junk under your shirt. You’ll only get warmer. Besides, Miss Lipp knows the way. You ride in the back.”
“Very well.” I had hoped that I might be able to drop the packet while I was making a hand signal; but I knew it was no use arguing with him.
At three-thirty we all went out and got into the car. Miller, of course, was first in the back. Harper motioned me to follow, then Fischer got in after me and Harper shut the door. So I wasn’t even next to a window.
Miss Lipp drove with Harper beside her.
From where I was sitting, the driving mirror did not reflect the road behind. After a minute or two, and on the pretext of giving Fischer more room for the arm that was in the sling, I managed to make a half turn and glance through the rear window. The Peugeot was following.
Miss Lipp drove steadily and very carefully, but there wasn’t much traffic and we made good time. At ten to four we were past the Dolmabahce Palace and following the tramlines up towards Taxim Square. I had assumed that the garage Harper had spoken of would be the one near the Spanish Consulate, and within walking distance of the Divan Hotel, which I had heard about from the surveillance man. It looked at that point as if the assumption were correct. Then, quite suddenly, everything seemed to go wrong.
Instead of turning right at Taxim Square, she went straight on across it and down the hill towards Galata. I was so surprised that I nearly lost my head and told her she was going the wrong way. Just in time, I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to know the way. But Miller had noticed my involuntary movement.
“What is the matter?”
“That pedestrian back there-I thought he was going to walk straight into us.” It is a remark that foreigners driving in Istanbul make every other minute.
He snorted. “They are peasants. They deny the existence of machinery.”
At that moment, Miss Lipp turned sharply left and we plunged down a ramp behind a service station.
It wasn’t a large place underground. There was garage space for about twenty cars and a greasing bay with an inspection pit. Over the pit stood a Volkswagen Minibus van. In front of it stood a man in overalls with a filthy rag in his hand.
Miss Lipp pulled the Lincoln over to the left and stopped. Harper said: “Here we are! Out!”
Miller and Harper already had their doors open, and Harper opened Fischer’s side as well. As I slid out after Miller, I got the cigarette packet from my shirt pocket into the palm of my hand.
Now Harper was climbing up into the driver’s seat of the van.
“Move yourselves,” he said, and pressed the starter.
The other door of the van was at the side. Miller wrenched it open and got in. As I followed, I pretended to stumble and then dropped the cigarette packet.
I saw it land on the greasy concrete and climbed on in. Then the door swung to behind me and I heard Fischer swear as it caught him on the shoulder. I leaned back to hold it open for him, so I was looking down and saw it happen. As he put out his good hand to grasp the handrail and climb in, his left foot caught the cigarette packet and swept it under the van into the pit. It wasn’t intentional. He wasn’t even looking down.
Miller shut the door and latched it.
“Hold tight,” Harper said, and let in the clutch.
As the van lurched forward, the back of my legs hit the edge of a packing case and I sat down on it. My face was right up against the small window at the back.
We went up to the top of the ramp again, waited a moment or two for a bus to go by, and then made a left turn on down towards the Galata Bridge. Through the window I could see the Peugeot parked opposite the garage.
It was still there when I lost sight of it. It hadn’t moved. It was waiting, faithful unto death, for the Lincoln to come out.
10
For a minute or two I couldn’t believe that it had happened, and kept looking back through the window expecting to see that the Peugeot was following after all. It wasn’t. Fischer was swearing and massaging his left shoulder where the door had caught him. Miller was grinning to himself as if at some private joke. As we bounced over the tramlines onto the Galata Bridge, I gave up looking back and stared at the floor. At my feet, amid some wood shavings, there were torn pieces of an Athens newspaper.
Of the six packing cases in the van, three were being used as seats. From the way the other three vibrated and slid about they appeared to be empty. From the way Miller and Fischer were having to hold on to steady themselves on the corners, it looked as if their cases were empty, too. Mine was more steady. It seemed likely that the case that I was sitting on now held the grenades, the pistols, and the ammunition that had come from Athens inside the doors of the car. I wished the whole lot would blow up then and there. It didn’t even occur to me, then, to wonder how they were going to be used. I had enough to think of with my own troubles.
As Harper drove past Aya Sophia and headed towards the gate in the old Seraglio wall, he began to talk over his shoulder to us.
“Leo goes first. Hans and Arthur together a hundred yards behind him. Arthur, you pay for Hans so that he doesn’t have to fumble for money with those bandages on. Right?”
“Yes.”
He drove through into the Courtyard of the Janissaries and pulled up under the trees opposite St. Irene.
“I’m not taking you any nearer to the entrance,” he said. “There’ll be guides hanging around and we don’t want them identifying you with this van. On your way, Leo. See you tonight.”
Miller got out and walked towards the Ortakapi Gate. He had about a hundred and fifty yards to go.
When he had covered half the distance, Harper said: “Okay, you two. Get ready. And, Arthur, you watch yourself. Leo and Hans both have guns and they’ll use them if you start getting out of line in any way.”
“I will think of the two thousand dollars.”
“You do that. I’ll be right behind you now, just to see that you make it inside.”
“We’ll make it.”
I wanted to appear as co-operative as I could just then, because, although I was sick with panic, I had thought of a way of stopping them that they couldn’t blame on me-at least in a dangerous way. I still had my
