The Istanbul Puzzle Read Free Page B

good idea.
    I soon found out that his appetite for corporate-speak was prodigious. We didn’t have projects any more, we had ‘collaboration initiatives’ or ‘research value actualisations’. And he’d been subtly critical of every ‘initiative’ I’d worked on since he’d joined. The work we’d done in Bavaria identifying Bronze Age settlements from satellite images hadn’t identified settlements from the target period, he’d said. And our trial security initiative in New York, for a big American bank, hadn’t turned into anything lucrative. All he wanted, it seemed, were projects that got us major contracts quickly.
    He was right in his own way, if you disregarded the fact that it took months for the impact of many of our projects to come to light.
    These faults weren’t compensated by his demeanour either. He seemed to be uninterested in everyone around him, not just me. Most of the time, it was almost as if his colleagues were invisible to him. What he preferred to do was talk about his own achievements.
    ‘Bad publicity is the last thing we need right now,’ he said, after I got through to him and told him I was planning to fly out to Istanbul that afternoon. He was good, as always, at finding the down side.
    ‘If there’s anything in the press about the Institute being involved in something it shouldn’t have been, it’ll be a disaster for our fundraising this year, Ryan. I know this is a bad time to say it, but there are some board members who think we’ve given you too much rope already.’ He waited for a moment for his words to detonate.
    What a bastard! Not a single word about Alek’s death. He’d be happy with our scalps on his wall next to those photos.
    ‘I won’t dodge my responsibilities,’ I said. ‘But I think you should reserve judgement until we know the facts.’ I cut the line.
    A few hours later I headed for Heathrow feeling sick, totally unprepared, and unplugged from reality.
    It knew it could easily have been me who’d been murdered out there. I could have gone to Istanbul instead of Alek, if I’d insisted on it. And there was more too. If what had happened to Alek had been because of our work in Hagia Sophia, how careful would I need to be?
    What was going to happen in Istanbul?

Chapter 5
    Malach walked slowly. He turned his head often. The yellow bulbs were barely bright enough to light the sloping brick tunnel in front of him. The polished sheen of his bare head, almost touching the roof, was elongated as if he had been bound at birth.
    From his huge hands dangled two canvas bags, the type you see in army surplus stores. Both were empty. When he reached his destination, he put them down beside the tables. He had work to do. The project had delivered what was needed. It was time to tidy up. What had happened in the last few days had pushed the cleanup operation forward, but not by much. Soon, if anyone found this place, they wouldn’t have any idea what had been going on.
    As he filled the canvas bags he thought about their unexpected visitor. The man had soiled himself in his last few minutes. Westerners were so weak. Their soft comforts made them that way. They knew nothing about how to face their end.
    He took the hunting knife from its scabbard under his armpit, felt the tip. It was still sharp. Good. He would need it again, soon if he was lucky. He loved the feeling of power that ran through him when he used it. It was exhilarating. He held the knife in the air, admiring it. Then he put it away. He had a lot to do.

Chapter 6
    Heathrow Airport, Terminal 5, the largest free-standing building in the UK, looked as busy the following morning as it had during the nightmare snow storm the previous winter.
    There were queues at the check-in machines, lines at the information desks, people sleeping, huddled together on its gleaming floor. The continued closure of French air space, due to an extended nationwide strike, was taking its toll. Flights that weren’t