The Navigator (NUMA Files 7)

“Dear God! What do we do?”

“They won’t try anything now. It’s too public. Let’s go for a stroll.”

Austin guided Carina in the direction of the palace gate. His pursuers kept pace a hundred or so feet behind. He scoured his memory and tried to recall the layout of Topkapi and the palace grounds, searching for a hidey-hole where they would be temporarily safe.

An idea came to him. Not a total escape, but it might gain them valuable time.

Carina saw the faint smile on Austin’s face and wondered if her friend had gone mad.

“What are you thinking?” she said in an anxious voice.

“No time for questions. Just do exactly what I tell you.”

Carina was an independent woman who bridled at anyone telling her what to do, but Austin seemed to have the knack of getting them out of tight places. She felt him tug gently on her arm and walked faster to keep up.

Austin guided her through the camera-toting crowds milling in the courtyard outside the treasury. They ducked around the corner of an elegant stand-alone marble building that once housed the sultan’s library and broke into a run. They ran through the ornate Gate of Felicity into another expansive courtyard. Austin guided her to the right, dashing through an open chamber where the sultan’s viziers used to meet, his eye fixed on a long row of colonnades and a ticket gate for the Topkapi harem.

They were in luck! The ticket taker who normally manned the gate had wandered off to have a smoke.

Hardly breaking stride, Austin pulled Carina past the untended gate to a door. It was unlocked. Austin opened the door, pushed Carina ahead, and stepped through the portal into the sultan’s harem. He closed the door behind them.

“What do we do now?” Carina said. She was breathless from their last-minute dash. Austin’s wound was kicking up again. He put his hand to his ribs.

“I’ll let you know just as soon as I figure that out,” he said.

Chapter 33

IN OTTOMAN DAYS, when the Topkapi harem was filled with hundreds of veiled beauties, an uninvited entry into its forbidden precincts would have been met by razor-sharp scimitars in the hands of the African eunuchs who guarded the place.

As Austin and Carina stepped into a long courtyard, the handsome young tour guide stopped his spiel and gave them a steely stare that was almost as cutting.

“Yes?” he said.

Austin put on his best Gomer Pyle grin. “Sorry we’re late.”

The guide frowned. The harem tours were conducted on a strict timetable. No one from the ticket booth had called to say there were two add-ons.

He clicked his hand radio to call the security guard.

Carina stepped over and gave the guard her most beguiling smile. She fumbled in her pocketbook and extracted a hundred-lira bill. “Do we tip you now or later?”

The guard smiled and clipped the hand radio onto his belt. “It is customary to tip at the end of the tour, but only if you are satisfied.”

“I’m sure I’ll be satisfied,” Carina said with a flutter of her long eyelashes.

The guide cleared his throat and turned back to the mixture of about two dozen Turks and assorted foreigners clustered around him.

“At one time, the harem housed more than a thousand concubines, slaves, sultan’s wives, and the sultan’s mother. The harem was like a small city, with more than four hundred rooms. On your left are the quarters of the Black Eunuchs and the chief eunuch, who guarded the harem. Other doors lead to the quarters of the imperial treasurer and the chamberlain. You can go through that door and inspect the apartments of the eunuchs,” he said.

The guide gave the same speech in Turkish, and then led the way into the guards’ dormitory like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Austin held Carina back until they were alone in the courtyard. His blue-green eyes scanned the doors, searching for a possible escape route. He tried one door handle. The door was unlocked. He was hoping they could lose their pursuers in the vast labyrinth of apartments and courtyards.

“Kurt,” Carina said.

The Carriage Gate door had opened. Buck stepped into the courtyard with his hard-faced friends and signaled to his men to spread out. They moved three abreast toward their prey.

The guide and the tour group poured out of the eunuchs’ living quarters into the courtyard, creating a human barrier of camera-toting tourists. Austin and Carina merged with the group as it went through a door that stood in a vestibule at the far end of the courtyard.