‘They’re the last people I’d go to,’ Hawn said, and they parted with more handshakes but no smiles.
CHAPTER 20
At precisely 7.49 p.m. by Hawn’s watch, the man in the oyster-white suit appeared in the lobby of the Pera Palace. Hawn and Anna followed him out to the same American limousine. Hawn asked him where they were going, but he did not answer. Since he spoke some English, they decided it was wiser not to discuss matters further — they had worked out their strategy for the evening while waiting at the hotel — and for most of the next hour they rode in silence.
Hawn guessed that they were driving north, since the darkness on their right indicated that they were following the coast of the Bosporus. The city lights began to fade, the traffic thinned, and they were soon speeding along a wide highway into the black night. Hawn watched the speedometer needle, which was touching the 120 kmph mark, and saw that they had driven nearly 50 miles, when a cluster of lights came towards them and the driver slowed into a gravel siding.
He gestured his two passengers to get out.
They seemed to be in a small fishing village, with a fresh tang of salt in the air. There were a couple of open-air cafes and a huddle of small white houses. On their right, moored at the end of a wooden jetty, was a handsome sixty-foot motor yacht, ablaze with light. The driver began to lead them down the jetty.
They were a few feet from the gangplank, when the sleek black-suited figure of the lawyer, Mustafa Gebel, appeared on deck. He had a welcoming, proprietorial air: he was proud of his vessel, as he had good reason to be. It was painted gleaming white and every inch of metal had been polished until it gave off a dazzling glint under the lights. Hawn noticed that he was wearing blue rubber-soled plimsolls.
After greeting them both, he added apologetically, ‘I must ask you to remove your shoes. I will give you others to wear. The deck, you understand.’
As soon as they stepped aboard, Hawn understood. The deck was of teak planking scrubbed almost white, like scraped bone. They ducked down into a saloon that was like a long narrow drawing-room, all dark mahogany and shining brass: velvet curtains across the portholes, a well-stocked cocktail cabinet in the shape of a glass-fronted bookcase, and banquettes along the walls of button-backed suede.
On one of these sat the huge figure of Selim Pasha. Even in the comparative spaciousness of the yacht he looked quite out of proportion. And he was alone.
The driver had disappeared. Mustafa Gebel closed the door and moved to the cocktail cabinet. ‘You choose — we have it. Whisky, gin, champagne on ice, martinis?’
He fixed the drinks himself. There seemed to be no one else on board. As a seasoned member of the Fleet Street round, Hawn always felt a faint mistrust of people who did not drink. Again, Selim Pasha and Mustafa Gebel were not drinking.
By now they were all seated — Hawn and Anna wearing plastic flipflops, and Selim Pasha in outsize bedroom slippers. The two Turks sat opposite them, at far ends of the banquette.
Hawn took a sip of his whisky. ‘All right, the polite charade is over. I’ve come all this way and I want results. Where is Imin Salak?’
Selim Pasha’s face broke into its ugly grin. ‘I am Imin Salak. Welcome aboard.’
Hawn asked for another whisky; Mustafa fetched it. ‘How did the British recruit you?’
‘In those days they recruited anyone. Anyone who spoke English and knew his way around. I had then, as now, special contacts, special sources. I knew many people. Even as a young man,’ he added immodestly, ‘I had much influence.’
‘And you worked solely for the British?’
Imin Salak laughed, and Mustafa Gebel responded with a dutiful smile. ‘Don’t take me for a fool, Mr Hawn. As a young man I made mistakes, but I was never stupid. Or perhaps you know little about Istanbul during the war?’
‘I was still having my nappies changed. Enlighten me.’
Salak paused. Now that the interview had begun, he seemed to be enjoying himself. ‘In Turkey during the war we had no loyalties, no special interests. In 1917, in the First War, we offered to join you British in exchange for money. Your Foreign Office refused. They considered such a transaction immoral. In the Second War we found ourselves being wooed by every side — we were like the most beautiful girl at a party who arrives without an escort.’
‘So you worked for the Germans too?’
‘When they paid me. And I made sure they paid me well. I also made sure that I didn’t make the same mistakes as that valet to your idiot ambassador in Ankara. Ah, that was a joke! The fellow stole every British secret — even the minutes of the Tehran Conference — and sold them to the Germans. Except that the Germans didn’t believe the stuff. They also paid him in forged pound notes. I was paid in gold.’
‘Did you find it easy to operate?’
‘Easy? What’s easy? Playing with children, maybe? No, it was not easy. It was not too difficult. It was all a matter of tact and judgement, and above all of knowing the right people.’
‘What about your Security Police? Neutral countries in a war tend to be very touchy about espionage, in case they tip the scales too far to one side.’
‘Security?’ Salak laughed again. ‘What sort of security do you think there was when Bay Faik Oztrak, who was Minister of the Interior, was dining with the Germans twice a week? Even Ismet Inonu, who was President of the Republic, had a German mistress. And she wasn’t just a tourist or a whore.’
‘Let me ask you a direct
