Straits of Power

me…. Sorry about your man.”

Felix grunted. He was starting to get choked up. He hated the after-action adrenaline crash, especially when his team took losses.

Salih and Costa trotted down the block and around the corner, returning in the gypsy cab and the Hyundai.

Everyone quickly squashed into one vehicle or the other, equipment and computer gear and body bag and all. Salih drove over to the parked German BMW. Costa in the Hyundai, with Felix and two men in back and the dead Gabrielli across their laps, sped to Mohr in the Mercedes.

They distributed their loads more evenly. Gabrielli was placed in the trunk of the Mercedes. The cars roared off in four different directions — just as the sounds of sirens began in the distance.

By splitting up and blending in, the cars were able to evade police and regroup at their final meeting point. To make better time, they used different roads than before, choosing routes that were more open, less congested — hostile surveillance was less of a problem now than direct interdiction by Turkish authorities.

Some of the cars went straight north through a belt of university campuses. Others, including Felix in the Mercedes with Salih and Mohr, looped northeast and then northwest, past a big synagogue and a massive cathedral — then came mosques, palaces, harems, and an ancient Roman arena, made into museums, all closed this time of the night.

The team got back together in a dark and deserted park, on the south shore of the Golden Horn, between the Ataturk Bridge and the Galata Bridge. They unloaded all their equipment, the wounded men — Porto and de Mello Vidal — and the body bag with Gabrielli inside. Then the four vehicles were driven off to be concealed behind bushes close to each bridge. The SEALs left two damaged Turkish MP-5s, magazines of Czech ammo, and phony “EMNIYET” flak vests in some of the cars; the uncleaned submachine guns had very obviously been recently fired, and some of the flak vests had bullet hits in them or blood on them. By morning the real police would find them, maintaining the SEALs’ cover story of being rogue Portuguese anti-German extremists. The cars dumped by the two bridges would make it look like the guerrillas had changed mounts after the attack and driven into the New City.

Felix and three unwounded SEALs all ran back to the meeting point after disposing of the cars. The distance they’d each had to cover was half a mile, but they put every ounce of remaining endurance into it, and they were worn out.

Felix lowered the sonar transducer into the putrid water of the Golden Horn, and activated it. While they waited for Meltzer to hear them and approach in the minisub, Salih and the unwounded SEALs changed from battle dress into their dive gear.

With binoculars Felix scanned the water for Meltzer’s periscope. The meeting point was in a little cove on the shore of the park, giving a bit of added privacy. There. Felix saw the periscope, looking straight back at him, not moving. He knew the photonics head had an image-intensification mode just like his binocs did, so Meltzer surely saw him. Meltzer had come as close in as he could, without the top of the mini showing or the bottom lock-in chamber hatch becoming mired in the mud.

“Chief, you and me.” Felix and Costa clipped themselves together with a six-foot lanyard and quietly entered the water. Soon they returned, carrying what looked like a streamlined coffin.

“Klaus,” Felix said, “you first. Then your equipment. Then we take the wounded, one by one.”

Mohr had already been briefed. Felix undid the watertight clamps and opened this pressure-proof personnel transfer capsule. Mohr lay down inside and Felix strapped him in and turned on the air supply. He resealed the capsule. Mohr gave him a thumb’s-up through the little window where a passenger’s face would be, riding inside with no need to wear scuba gear or even be able to swim.

Felix adjusted the buoyancy tanks of the capsule. He and Costa went underwater with the grand prize of their extraction mission safely cocooned — Herr Doctor Klaus Mohr, alias Peapod to the CIA, code name Zeno to the Axis.

Chapter 38

At noon on Saturday, Jeffrey tapped his foot impatiently outside the air-lock trunk that led up into Challenger’s minisub hangar. The mini had docked and the hangar doors were closed; the ship was secured from battle stations. The minisub had returned seven hours earlier than seemed possible, and Jeffrey really wanted to know why.

He’d verified that Felix was in the mini and not under duress by using the acoustic link to ask questions only Felix himself could properly answer. And he knew there were casualties.

Felix half-stumbled out of the air lock, exhausted and elated all at once. “Woo, was that one hell of a ride!”

Challenger’s chief medical corpsman and his assistants moved in and climbed up to assist the wounded SEALs. They would work on them inside the minisub first, then lower them strapped into Stokes litters, stretchers covered with protective wire cages.

Gerald Parker came down the ladder from the mini, also visibly frazzled — and frustrated, irritated, even incensed.

An unfamiliar figure appeared behind Parker. He was tall and slim and handsome, blond with blue eyes. Jeffrey thought he looked as thoroughly German as a German ever could; he had to resist his natural impulse to hate the man on sight as the enemy. His hair and clothes were a mess. His face was gaunt; he needed a shave and his eyes were bloodshot.

The stranger glanced around at his new environment, bewildered at first. He quickly got his bearings, and recognized Jeffrey. From my picture somewhere?

Parker and Felix opened their mouths to say something, but the German beat them to it.

“Captain Fuller, it is a great honor to meet you at last. My name is Klaus Mohr. We must speak in private immediately.”

Parker butted in. “Captain, I would not recommend it. Mohr has been uncooperative since he stepped into the minisub. He repeatedly refused to give me a debrief of any kind. He’s holding something back when he should be spilling his guts out to me.”

Mohr gave Parker a look of contempt. Perfect Aryan specimen and haughty Ivy League WASP glared at each other.

Jeffrey, feeling bombarded, turned to Felix. “Lieutenant?”

“Well, yeah. He said he needed to rest, and wanted to have to go through the details only once, with the man in charge. You, Captain. Then he told us that every hour counted, and that the minisub couldn’t waste fuel. He suggested a way to solve the latter problem.”

“And?”

“I assessed it to be feasible, and also advantageous since our fuel margin was already slim. It worked — I have to give him that much. In the big picture, I don’t know. My job was to deliver the guy. He’s here.” Felix shrugged.

Jeffrey decided to slow this conflict down to get control over it. He’d take things step-by-step. He sized Mohr up. He wasn’t surprised that there was antagonism between Mohr and Parker, considering how badly Jeffrey and Parker got along. Parker was overbearing, a bully, a snob. That might work in other contexts, with agents Parker thought he owned because of extortion or whatever, but it was clear at once that Klaus Mohr knew nobody owned him. He had a very intelligent face, a dignified bearing, evident self-pride, and, if half the CIA’s guesswork was right, he’d also have heavyweight academic credentials. From Mohr’s point of view, if sincere, he was doing the Allies a favor, not the other way around.

Parker is the wrong man for this job…. But I’ve learned a few things from him. I can manipulate too.

Jeffrey intended to put Mohr through the wringer. And he’d do it subtly, only after first breaking the ice.

“What was your time-saver, Herr Mohr? May I call you Klaus?”

“In my role as trade attache, I know…” He frowned to himself. “Excuse me, I knew