DEADLINE ISTANBUL
by Peggy Hanson
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2013 by Peggy Hanson.
All rights reserved.
Published by Wildside Press LLC.
www.wildsidebooks.com
THE ELIZABETH DARCY SERIES
Deadline Istanbul
Deadline Yemen
FOREWORD
Deadline Istanbul is a blend of reality and of dream-like memories, of fact and fiction, of people I may have met with those purely made-up. My love affair with Turkey goes far, far back, to Peace Corps days in the 1960’s and has been renewed with more years of living there and innumerable visits to virtually every corner of that wondrous land.
In all those years of living in and visiting Turkey, I never came across the dead bodies and mysterious crimes my protagonist Elizabeth Darcy can’t seem to avoid. Even as a correspondent for Voice of America, I didn’t encounter much murder—first-hand, at least.
In this book, I’ve taken liberties with Turkey and its people, as well as with expatriates who live or work there. I hope I have managed to present them both with the richness they deserve. There are good people, bad people, kind and cruel people. In short, exotic surroundings do not change human nature.
CHAPTER 1
Dear friends, listen to me now,
Love’s like the shining sun,
A heart without love
Is nothing more than a stone.
What rises up in a stony heart?
No matter how softly it begins,
The tongue’s soft words
Soon turn to war when poison spews.
Yunus Emre, 13th Century Turkish poet
1996
Lights flickered along the dark sides of the Bosphorus. Happy lights, he thought. He pictured romantic dinners in restaurants with lights down low. Parties of well-dressed guests from all nations nibbling on meze and drinking rakı. Making sophisticated jokes about politics. Gossiping. Good stuff for backgrounders, if not news. Grist for the reporter’s mill.
Peter Franklin was dressed for one of those parties—that one up there. From here he could see the gleaming crystal glasses, held by coiffed women and well-tailored men who had stepped out on the veranda for some Bosphorus night air.
If his mysterious contact arrived, he’d go, as planned. Parties always offered interesting contacts and possible networking. But opportunities to meet major players, like the one he awaited now, were far more rare and could not be ignored. The party would have to wait.
If his contact came. He was almost sure he knew who that would be.
Water lapped at the bottom of the boat and a ferry leaving Beşiktaş landing gave off a mournful toot.
The first bridge, strung like a necklace across the water, framed the distant domes and minarets of Süleymaniye, the greatest creation of the sixteenth-century architect Sinan. On a nearer point lay Topkapı Palace, eerie and quiet. Its lighted walls hid the secrets of centuries, of long-dead Sultans and their harems of women from all over the Empire.
Peter loved Istanbul. He loved its mosques, its alleys, its history. He loved its women and its cosmopolitan food. He soaked up its magic.
This story had become Peter’s baby. He’d taken months to weave the threads together. He would have his confirmation soon.
His small boat rocked on the wake of the Russian cargo ship passing in the night. The boatman kept the light off, as requested.
The other caique came slowly, silently, beside his boat, floating on the current.
Peter never had a chance.
The last sound he heard was the plaintive call to prayer from the historic mosque along the wharf.
Peter missed the party.
CHAPTER 2
I like to walk in cities; to ask the way; to find what I want to find by getting lost in the back streets, across the wastelands where the gardens are, and the shops and the bazaar stalls; to flow with a throng of people at lunch hour, then find an empty street and go slowly.
Mary Lee Settle, Turkish Reflections
Afternoon sunlight glinted pale-gold across the Bosphorus. Sea gulls followed the ferry in raucous competition, trying to catch a piece of sesame-covered simit thrown by a passenger. The smell of fresh-salt water permeated the air. I pulled my raincoat around me.
Damn, damn, damn.
Everyone in the Trib newsroom had been shocked. Popular, gregarious Peter. Aggressive reporter. Much-respected at the Trib. I took it personally. He was my friend, colleague, and partner on some prize-winning investigative stories. We both loved digging out the truth.
Now here I was, alone in Istanbul. To do Peter’s job. Not an assignment I’d ever thought to have, or wanted to have.
The Embassy dispatch said Turkish police had completed an investigation and thought Peter had died of an accidental overdose of an illegal drug.
Easy for the police to say, but I didn’t buy it. Peter was a professional. I had to clear his name of this posthumous insult.
My editor Mac had read my mind. “Not your job to investigate this. Don’t do it! I don’t need two correspondents dead.”
Mac knew perfectly well I’d follow my own advice, not his. I assured him I’d be careful. He punched my arm playfully, a worried frown on his face. We understood each other.
Plaintive Turkish wails of love gone wrong swirled around the few of us riding outside along the ferry’s railing. The sad tunes fitted my mood. Where had the music come from?
Two people down from me along the railing, a man with dark, olive-shaped eyes, wearing a black leather jacket, seemed to be the source. The radio must be in his pocket. His thick mustache matched his dark hair. He smoked a cigarette and looked away from me. Macho in the extreme. A Turk’s Turk, right from an old Camel ad.
The wooden ferry made a clean swath through the dark water. Bubbles of white wake stretched out and widened behind us, untraceable footprints on our liquid path.
CHAPTER 3
“I have seen the terrible punishments meted out in hell to tie-wearing atheists and arrogant colonialist positivists who make fun of the common people and their faith…”
Orhan Pamuk, Snow
Erol Metin walked from the Silver Wolves’ meeting to the bus stop in Üsküdar. From there he would catch a ferry to the European side of the Bosphorus.
Nizam, the leader of the Silver Wolves, had been right in his monologue tonight to the brothers Turkey was headed the wrong direction. One could never say so publicly, but Atatürk himself had started that, in the eyes of the Silver Wolves. After all his heroism in defining and protecting the nation at the end of World War I, Atatürk—or at least his successors—had veered off course.
Yes, there never would have been a Turkey without Atatürk. One had to admit that. Even Nizam admitted that. But why did the Father of the Turks have to wipe out Islam to save Turkey? Why did he have to embrace the West? Pushing the Greeks into the sea made sense to Erol and his group. Banning the fez and veil did not.
Erol’s purpose in life was to right that wrong, among others. Turkey was not the West; it belonged to the East. It was a magnificent leader in the East. The home of the Caliph. A bulwark for Islam.
Whatever means it took to help Turkey regain its rightful place, he would do it.
Erol was young and idealistic. He did not separate