The Navigator (NUMA Files 7)

Austin glanced over his shoulder. Buck and his men were shouldering their way through the crowd.

“What should we do?”

Carina whispered.

“Enjoy the tour for now, and when I say run, run.”

“Run where?”

“Still working on that,” Austin said.

Carina muttered in Italian. Austin didn’t need a translator to tell him she was cursing. He saw her anger as a good sign that she hadn’t given in to despair.

The guide led the way through a square-domed chamber. Stopping every few minutes to deliver a speech in Turkish and in English, the guide pointed out where the concubines lived, where the children of the harem went to school, and where the food for the vast complex was prepared.

Austin glanced longingly at the doors and corridors that offered possible escape routes. There was no way he and Carina could break away from the crowd. With each stop, Buck and his friends drew closer.

Austin put himself in the shoes of the pursuers. The three men would move in and separate him from the crowd. Two men would finish him off with their knives. The third would grab Carina.

Buck and his thugs were all former special ops men. Their training would have included knife fighting and assassination. A hand clamped over his mouth to prevent him from calling out. A quick thrust of a blade between his ribs. By the time bystanders realized murder had been done, Austin would be breathing his last. Buck and company would slip away in the confusion that would follow.

If he was going to make a move, he’d better do it soon.

The tour group stepped into a large carpeted room. The walls were decorated in seventeenth-century blue-and-white tile. A wide sofa covered in gold brocade sat on a platform under a gilded canopy supported on four columns. The walls were decorated in a combination of baroque and rococo style. Light filtered through the stained-glass windows in the upper section of the domed room.

The guide said they were in the throne room, or royal saloon. At one end of the chamber was another platform where the concubines, wives, and the sultan’s mother sat during affairs of state or to enjoy music and dancing.

The crowd began to break up, removing the human buffer Austin and Carina had been using to fend off Buck and his gang. As the group dissipated, Austin faced the three men with only a few tourists in between them.

Now or never.

Austin whispered to Carina to play along. He took her by the hand and sidled up to the guide.

“Would it be possible for us to leave the tour?” Austin said. “My wife is not feeling well. She’s pregnant.”

The guide took in Carina’s slim profile. “Pregnant?”

“Yes,” Carina said with a demure smile. “Only a few months.”

Carina spread her fingers across her flat abdomen. The guide blushed and hurriedly pointed to a doorway. “You can go out that way.”

They thanked him and headed for the exit.

“Wait!” the guide said. He lifted his walkie-talkie to his lips. “I’ll call the guard to escort you.”

He spoke into the hand radio. The guard would arrive in a few minutes. He told them to stay with the group in the meantime.

Buck had seen Austin talking to the guide. When the guide spoke into his radio, he assumed that Austin had called for help.

“Let’s do it,” he said to his men.

Austin was guiding Carina from one part of the room to the other, trying to put space between them and their pursuers. He was learning that hide-and-seek wasn’t made to be played in the open.

The three men closed in. Buck was close enough so that Austin could see the murderous gleam in his eye. Buck reached under his jacket.

A burly security guard entered the royal saloon, and the tour guide pointed out Austin and Carina. Austin played his ace card.

Pointing an accusing finger at Buck and the two other men, he roared at the top of his lungs. “PKK! PKK!”