Crescent Dawn (Dirk Pitt 21)

He held perfectly still, quietly catching his breath beneath the ramp while checking where the woman was located. He correctly gauged that he had bypassed her beneath the ramp as she ran toward the point of his initial splash. Peering from the water’s edge, he saw her pacing on the far side with her gun pointed at the water.

Slipping back under the ramp, he cautiously followed it in the other direction until it made an angled turn. There was more illumination in the area than he preferred, but the bend offered a point of concealment as a staging area for attack. He started to pull himself up a support beam when he detected a new set of footsteps pounding down the stone stairs. A car horn honking on the street blared in the background.

“Miss Maria, we must leave at once,” shouted a male voice in Turkish. “The police are beginning to search outside of Topkapi.”

Pitt crept back into the water as the woman broke into a run in his direction. Hearing her pass overhead, he held perfectly still, listening as she began climbing the stone steps. Nearing the top, she hesitated for a moment, then a shrill voice boomed through the cistern.

“I shall not forget you!” she shrieked.

The sound of her footsteps fell away, and the car horn ceased honking. Pitt sat still in the cold water, listening to the eerie echo of the falling water droplets. Satisfied that the assailants were in fact gone, he climbed onto the ramp and made his way to the end, calling out Loren’s name along the way.

His freezing wife appeared from behind one of the columns and waded to the ramp, where Pitt hoisted her up. Though her hair was a mess, her dress soaked, and she shivered with cold, she still looked radiant to Pitt.

“You all right?”

“Yes,” she said. “Are they gone?”

Pitt nodded, holding her hand as they walked down the ramp.

“Nasty people,” she said. “I wonder how many they killed during the heist.”

Pitt could only speculate. “Did they hurt you?” he asked.

“No, but they clearly weren’t afraid to kill. They didn’t seem to care at all when I told them I was a U.S. Congresswoman.”

“They must have less regard for politicians here than in America.”

“Did you give her the bag?”

“No, I’m afraid she had to leave empty-handed. As you heard, she doesn’t intend to forget us.”

“Where did you hide it?”

Pitt stopped and pointed toward the crown of a marble column that rose from the water just a few feet away. Wrapped around a high-mounted light fixture atop the column, the twisted black bag hung dangling over the water.

“It’s not hidden,” he said with a slight grin. “It’s just a tad out of reach.”

6

ANOTHER CUP OF TEA, SHEIKH?”

The guest nodded slightly as his host proceeded to refill his cup with black tea. Barely thirty, he was the youngest of five sons born to one of the ruling royal families of the United Arab Emirates. A slight man, he wore a perfectly pressed, bone-white headdress wrapped with a gold-threaded agal, which barely hinted at the multibillions of petrodollars that his family controlled.

“The Mufti’s movement appears to have a sound footing in Turkey,” he said, setting the teacup down. “I am pleased at the progress you have reported.”

“Mufti Battal has a devoted following,” the host replied, gazing toward a portrait of a wise-looking man in black robe and turban hanging on the far wall. “The times and conditions have been conducive to expanding the movement, and the Mufti’s personal popularity has enhanced its appeal. We have a real opportunity ahead to change Turkey and her role in the world. Achieving such change, however, requires considerable resources.”

“I am committed to the cause here, as I am committed to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt,” the Sheikh replied.

“Like our Egyptian brothers, we will unite in the way of Allah,” the host replied with a bow.

The Sheikh rose and crossed the high-rise office, which looked and felt like the interior of a mosque. Small kilim prayer rugs were aligned in an open space, facing a tiled mihrab aimed at Mecca. On the opposite wall, a high bookshelf was filled with antique copies of the Qur’an. Only a huge illuminating picture window warmed the otherwise austere and reverent interior.

The Sheikh moved to the window and admired the panorama before him. The office building was situated on the Asian bank of the Bosphorus and offered a breathtaking view of old Istanbul on the European shore, just across the slim waterway. The Sheikh stared at the towering minarets of the Süleymaniye Mosque in the distance.

“Istanbul has an earnest respect for its past, as it should,” he said. “One cannot attain greatness without building on the past.”

He turned to his host. “My brothers are all Western educated. They wear British-made suits and crave sleek automobiles,” he said with disdain.