Straits of Power

within Turkey was heavily used.

Felix found an unoccupied pay terminal, and inserted his calling card. He went to an e-mail account whose ISP code, account name, and password he’d memorized. The account had been created by an in-country, CIA- connected agent whom Parker told Felix he had no need to know more about. He didn’t check for e-mails, but went directly to the drafts folder. It was empty. None of his two other teams, the men who’d hailed a taxi or the men who’d taken a bus, had checked in yet. Felix changed the account password to something only the SEAL team knew, to prevent unwanted intrusion if the in-country agent was compromised. Felix walked back to his car.

Different people accessing the same e-mail account and leaving messages for each other as unsent drafts was the latest version of an age-old spycraft tool: the dead drop, a place no snooping third party would think to look. Because the drafts were never sent, they were never scrutinized by the government’s software that monitored e-mail content — and they couldn’t be intercepted in transit by covert adversaries either. The messages are never in transit.

Near his Mercedes, Felix glanced around, pretending to check for possible muggers — like all big cities, Istanbul had its share of crime. He was really looking for security cameras, or any people in a direct line of sight. Satisfied, he got into the car, put the MP-5 strap over his left shoulder, and donned the windbreaker. Driving now was uncomfortable, but Felix had been through far worse discomfort in training and in battle.

Felix and Salih left the garage, paying in cash for their short stay. Felix, saw the Hyundai as it circled the block. He wanted, and so allowed, Chief Costa to notice him. By maintaining a neutral expression, instead of giving some other prearranged sign, Felix informed the chief: no word from the other SEALs yet.

Felix drove to a high-rise luxury hotel, and stopped the Mercedes at the underground valet parking. He told the attendant his passenger was just checking in for now, and they’d need the car again soon. Felix opened the door for Salih, then unlocked the trunk. He took out both gym bags.

Inside the busy lobby, at ground level, they declined the offer from a bellhop to take their bags. They stood in line at the check-in desk and waited their turn. They again provided the clerk with the name Awais Iqbal, gave the reservation confirmation code that Iqbal had obtained more than a week earlier, and explained the last-minute substitution of Salih for Iqbal. They presented their documents, and the clerk did a quick verification of everything on his computer. Salih paid in advance for the room and for the party buffet with gold South African Krugerrand one-ounce coins. These were readily accepted — the price of gold had skyrocketed since the war, and the coins had long been sold worldwide to investors and collectors. The clerk gave Salih his change in cash, and handed him a plastic key card for the electronic lock to their room. They took the elevator to the twenty-second floor, the highest level. Their room was actually an elaborate corner suite at the end of the corridor, laid out for business entertaining. On one side out in the hall were emergency stairs. The chief quickly checked them — no surprises.

The suite immediately next door was already occupied. Through the walls, Felix and Salih could hear music playing, laughter, and loud conversation in Japanese. Felix put his ear to the wall.

Only men…. Their call girls haven’t arrived yet.

He glanced at his watch. After 7 P.M.

Felix allowed himself a quick look at the magnificent view, and then pulled the curtains closed. He took a device from his gym bag and did a sweep of the suite for listening devices. Clean.

The phone rang. Salih answered, then said something in Turkish and hung up. “On his way,” Salih told Felix. In a minute, the enlisted SEAL from the chase car came in, without his gym bag, but with his windbreaker on. Felix knew Chief Costa had dropped the man off nearby and that he’d walked to the hotel. Part of the plan was that he would now change cars to ride with Felix and Salih. All of them went downstairs and out of the hotel, onto the crowded and noisy street. They found another Internet pay terminal. Felix checked again for messages. This time both other teams said they were ready. No acknowledgment was needed; from now on everyone knew what to do. Felix deleted the drafts, then emptied the trash folder.

They walked to the hotel’s parking garage, picked up the Mercedes, and drove back into Istanbul traffic. They saw the Hyundai with the chief at the place they’d agreed upon; he’d been maneuvering around the area, still watching for hostile agents watching him. Felix let the Hyundai get a few car lengths behind him. Then he set off for his next stop, the German consulate. It was close to Taksim Square, in the heart of the New City, very Westernized and with a very active nightlife.

Klaus Mohr waited in the lobby of the consulate. After playing every trick card he could — reinforced by brown-nosing and pleading — he’d been given permission to go out with the Turk who was standing in for Awais Iqbal. He’d been ordered not to get the least bit drunk, to take the usual measures against sexual disease, and to save more than adequate energy for his work with the Kampfschwimmer later. He was told in no uncertain terms that he needed to leave the party at midnight, and would be picked up by a consulate car, with security — some of which he’d see, and some of which he wouldn’t. Before he left the consulate, the guard at the desk was to know the exact location of the party… and Mohr and this Turk would be tailed there as a further precaution.

Mohr worked to behave naturally now. The lobby guards weren’t paying him any special attention. They had no reason to. On the contrary, they’d been warned to act naturally themselves, alert but nonchalant, despite unmistakable changes in the work rhythms and moods of the senior staff. Though they didn’t know the reason for their instructions on how to behave, Mohr did: No clues could be allowed to leak about Pandora and the stepped-up timing of the Afrika Korps offensive.

If these guards only knew… But there are also surveillance cameras in the lobby, monitored by hard men who do know. Mohr forced himself to not keep looking at his watch or the clock on the wall, or right at a camera. The Turk who was supposed to meet him was late. He’d received no last-minute confirmation that the stag party, the whole extraction plan, was still on. He could think of a dozen things that might have gone wrong, things he wouldn’t have heard about or been told about.

There was still the danger that his loyalty was suspect, and that he was being entrapped.

The worst of it was that only Mohr himself understood what would really have to be done to halt Pandora. His rescuers, if they even arrived, had no idea of what was truly called for, and no conception of how narrow the margin of time had suddenly become.

Mohr tried to redirect his concern and doubt into a difficult masquerade: He was supposed to be bound for a lecherous night on the town, to lustfully celebrate his legal separation from a now thoroughly estranged wife. He was supposed to also be on the verge of the final fruition of his astounding technical genius, putting into practical effect breakthroughs he’d spent his entire career on. Hurrah for the Fatherland! Long live the kaiser! Mohr felt bitter about how he’d been used for years by the coup conspirators, and about how he’d let himself be used.

Someone came into the lobby from outside. Mohr looked up hopefully, his chest tight — but it was only a minor consulate employee.

A few minutes later one of the guards at the outer gate came inside. Again Mohr held his breath. The man popped into the rest room near the lobby, then went back to his post.

Mohr couldn’t help but glance at the clock. It was 8:25.

The desk guard read his mind.

“Probably just traffic.”

Mohr nodded. He hoped so. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

The gate guard came inside again. Mohr’s heart skipped a beat. But the guard murmured to the desk guard about something Mohr couldn’t hear. Neither of them even looked in his direction. They murmured together further. Mohr shifted his attention to the doors. He reminded himself that to act impatient at this point would be normal. Not being annoyed by the delay could give him away. He heard the desk guard typing on his computer.

The gate guard went to the armored glass doors leading back outside. Mohr felt utterly crestfallen. He swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple hurt, making a noise he was sure both guards could hear. The gate guard stopped abruptly. He turned to Mohr, with the door propped half open against his back. Now Mohr could barely breathe.

“Herr Mohr, your ride is here.”

Mohr almost wobbled, weak kneed, as he got up. He realized with a mix of exhilaration and fear that the gate guard was standing there to politely hold the door for him.

A Mercedes-Benz with a driver and another man in front idled by the curb, in the restricted parking zone outside the consulate compound’s security wall. A third man, with dark skin and a thick black mustache, was