Felix glanced at the messenger and raised an eyebrow.
“The captain didn’t say not to.”
The summoned foursome helped themselves. Brown plastic mugs were stacked by the dozen near two large metal pots of very strong coffee. Carrying the mugs throughout the ship was normal practice — it was sometimes hard to get through a six-hour watch, manning a console or piece of machinery, without a stiff dose of caffeine.
The group arrived together at Captain Fuller’s stateroom. The door was closed, so Felix knocked.
The door opened. “Lieutenant,” Jeffrey told Felix, “have one of your men stay outside my door here as a guard, for security. Have the other walk through my stateroom and the connecting head to the XO’s room, and then stand outside his outer door. The only person you should see along the way is Mr. Parker. The XO and Lieutenant Milgrom are in the control room now.”
“You heard the captain,” Felix said; the CO and the XO cabins shared a common, private bathroom.
Porto and Costa did what they were told; Felix and Salih went inside and Jeffrey closed the door. Gerald Parker stood up, and everyone made quick hellos.
Jeffrey sat down behind his tiny desk. Parker, a senior person himself, kept the guest chair. Salih perched on the filing cabinet. Felix, faced with the choice of standing in a corner or leaning against the bulkhead next to Jeffrey’s dressing mirror, decided to stand.
Parker turned his chair so everyone could see each other better. “Captain Fuller was asking about how we’ll make contact with Peapod. This seems as good a time as any to brief all of you.”
Felix and Salih nodded.
“There are two parts to it,” Parker said. “One is letting him know we’re coming, so he can get ready. The other is the actual rescue snatch. For the latter, he also needs instructions in advance. And contact with Peapod has to be made right away.”
“So he doesn’t chicken out, you mean?” Felix asked.
“Something like that. So he knows what to do and when. And what not to do, like panic or spill his guts to his bosses because he thinks we’ve abandoned him.”
“With you so far,” Jeffrey said. “But something’s missing. Who, or how, does someone get a message through to Peapod? Since that raid on the brothel where he almost got killed, they’ll have extra bodyguards and keep the guy under lock and key.”
Parker nodded. “There are times when the most covert approach is to move in plain sight.”
“Go on.”
“Peapod’s cover provided by the Germans is as a trade attache. Someone we own will meet with Peapod right there in the consulate during his regular office hours.”
“What do you mean, ‘own’?” Jeffrey asked.
“Remember, we’re dealing with very different cultures, not America. Turkey is a secular state, but the majority of the population is Muslim. The person we own is a Pakistani citizen, also Muslim, employed by one of Pakistan’s major import-export firms at their Istanbul office. This person, whose code name is Aardvark, happens to be bisexual, with a personal orientation to mostly be a practicing transvestite. Turkey generally tolerates gay behavior in private, but they’re self-contradictory. They detest men who dress as women for sex. Aardvark would also be in big trouble with his employers if his lifestyle became known to them, partly because he’s been a naughty boy and often does what he does on the company’s time and the company’s dime. Exposed, he’d lose his job for sure, would be expelled from Turkey, back to Pakistan, and would be unemployable and humiliated in front of his family there. Aardvark likes the city he works in now very much. He likes the cosmopolitan feel of Istanbul, the active nightlife, and he likes to party.”
“Party? You mean like alcohol, drugs, orgies?”
“We have very explicit video of him with other men. You don’t want to know the details…. That’s how we own him…. We pay him, through a covert intermediary of course, to soften the pain of his servitude.”
“And to compromise him even more,” Felix said.
“Yes, there is that.” Parker didn’t even blink.
“But how is Aardvark supposed to get a message to Peapod?” Jeffrey asked. “Just by making an appointment about trade and then walking into his office? Won’t the place be totally bugged?”
“Of course.”
“And how do we get Peapod to trust Aardvark, and fast?”
Parker smiled. “Aardvark will offer him a gift he can’t accept, then give him an invitation he won’t refuse.”
Chapter 16
Klaus Mohr, age thirty-seven, a German fit and handsome in the classic Aryan way, sat at his desk in his office, in mid-morning. This was the time of day when he acted as a trade attache for real, to maintain his diplomatic cover — his clandestine work for Plan Pandora took place after lunch and into the evening, in a more secure part of the building, or in safe houses from which field tests of the ruggedized black boxes’ stealth and reliability were staged.
He glanced at his appointment book, then at the ornate antique clock on his big cherry-wood desktop. He had a few minutes until his next engagement. Although Germany’s trade mission to Turkey was important to the Fatherland, Mohr considered this part of the day as his special quiet time. The routine paperwork and meetings with foreign businessmen never taxed his energy or nerves. There were too many other things weighing on his mind already — and the really serious stuff, about bilateral agreements, tariff and customs arrangements, and investment cooperation was taken care of by genuine experts on the embassy and consular staffs.
Mohr got up and paced to one of the windows. An oil painting of the new kaiser, crowned Wilhelm IV less than a year ago, looked down at him from the wall. Knowing that the man was a figurehead, and as used as anyone else in Germany by the ruthless new regime, Mohr felt slightly sorry for him.
Mohr was also feeling sorry for himself. The excitement of surviving the brothel ambush had worn off. But his superiors were still angry with him for taking such serious risks for his own selfish pleasure; Mohr, for all practical purposes, was confined to the consulate grounds until further notice. His two bodyguards had died on Turkish soil, and the Istanbul police and Turkish counterintelligence service were both investigating hotly. Mohr’s diplomatic credentials might grant him immunity from any prosecution, but that couldn’t prevent him from being declared persona non grata and expelled from the country. He’d really been an innocent victim at the legal brothel, but his involvement in the subsequent foot chase and multiparty shootout exposed him to piercing questions by local law enforcement. This, Germany could not and would not allow. Mohr was still needed for Plan Pandora; to be forced to leave Turkey soon could be a disaster for the Axis war effort. Yet because of his own good work, Mohr was needed less and less each day. This, he knew, made him increasingly vulnerable not only to Turks but to fellow Germans.
The window of his second-floor office was half open, since it was a very warm and humid day and the air- conditioning in this older part of the building was weak. The noise of street traffic and babbling voices and snatches of exotic music came in through the window, from beyond the high concrete wall that protected the consulate. In one direction, Mohr could see modern skyscrapers. In another, he saw palace towers and mosque minarets. The huge city really had something for everyone.
A commando raid on the consulate, in the middle of downtown Istanbul, was doomed to fail, aside from being an act of outright war. The consulate had its own concealed but heavy defenses, and neutral Turkey would tolerate
