The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [220]
She handed Cal a small photograph of a pretty blond girl and said, “Please, find Anna for me. Help her.”
Cal stared in stunned silence at the mystery girl everyone was searching for. The Ivanoff heiress. He was looking at a picture of Genie Reese.
Istanbul
Istanbul tumbled and crumbled under the hot spring sun, blistering and peeling, layered with dust and grime, clogged with traffic and clapped-out taxis, carpet sellers and cats. The domes of its tarnished jewels, Topkapi, Ayasofya, and the Blue Mosque glittered in the sun, the famous minarets needled the blue sky, and here and there, like an oasis of calm in the constant growl of the city, lay broad peaceful squares where people took their ease with a glass of cai at café tables under the trees. Below snaked the Bosphorus—the route to Russia, one shore Asia, the other Europe, abuzz with fishing boats and ferries and big gray ships, the verdant hills on either side dotted with new villas and the palaces and wooden summer houses of a past century.
Boris Solovsky scarcely noticed that the spring afternoon was blue and cloudless, nor that he was in a city of breathtaking antiquity. He cared nothing for the gentle, smiling people crowding the sidewalks, nor the dark-eyed red-lipped women, chic in couture suits, being transported to smart lunches in smart limousines, and he had only a passing glance for the soldiers outside the Dolmabahçe Palace.
He had flown from Moscow to Ankara yesterday, ostensibly on a diplomatic mission to Turkey’s capital, but later that night he had taken a private jet to Istanbul and his target. Genie Reese had escaped his agents in Washington; she had been on a flight to Heathrow while they were still tying up the guards at her house. In London she had taken a connecting British Airways flight to Istanbul, but this time the KGB had been waiting for her. As she walked from the airport terminal they had surrounded her, jostling her into a waiting car so fast she had no time even to cry out. A quick injection and she had slumped in the seat incapable of any further protest. Now Genie Reese, alias Anna Ivanoff, awaited his pleasure.
Boris permitted himself a smile of satisfaction. It was going to be the greatest act of pleasure in a life devoted to satisfying his baser instincts. She was the key to the final destruction of Alexei and Valentin Ivanoff.
Valentin focused his powerful binoculars, scouring the buildings opposite his room in a small, rundown hotel in the Istanbul suburb of Emirgan. He saw nothing untoward; no marksmen waiting on the roofs or lurking behind open windows. The street below was busy, jammed with buses spitting diesel fumes and ancient Chevrolets with stuttering exhausts. An old-fashioned tea seller, his silver urn strapped over his shoulders, padded down the sidewalk in pointed Turkish slippers; a street vendor was doing a roaring trade with peeled and salted cucumbers to cool throats parched from the city’s dust; and at a café terrace a group of gnarled fishermen smoked hubble-bubble pipes and drank coffee that was stiff with grounds and sugar, gossiping about the old days.
It was a normal everyday Istanbul scene, far removed from the menace he knew lay in wait for him. But at least it told him he had a few hours’ grace before the KGB heard he was here. His father, Sergei, had telephoned Washington last night and greatly daring, had said urgently, “Valentin, they picked Genie Reese up at Istanbul Airport. As you have worked so hard on this case, I am sure Boris would appreciate your help.”
His heart sank as he thought about Genie and her announcement on TV. He knew she had as good as signed her own death warrant. He had gone straight to her apartment, cursing the rush-hour traffic that delayed him ten precious minutes, only to find the guards bound, gagged, and unconscious and no sign of Genie. The KGB had gotten there before him. He was certain they had not killed her yet, because she had the information they needed. A discreet check with the