The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [67]
Ahmet Kazahn watched calmly as his father limped around the enormous office with its tall windows overlooking the Sea of Marmara, waving his cane and raging about the foolishness of women—especially granddaughters—and the trouble they were bringing to the house of Kazahn.
“Why?” he demanded, his thick black brows beetling angrily. “Why, I ask you,” he repeated, banging his ebony cane so violently on the beautiful parquet floor that it snapped. “Bah!” He tossed it from him disgustedly and limped to his desk with the odd swinging motion of his paralyzed right leg that enabled him to cover more ground faster than a normal man. “Asil,” he yelled to his secretary on the intercom, “fetch me another cane!”
“Why did they do this?” he demanded again of Ahmet. “Why did Anna not come to us—to the family—if she needed money? And—in the name of heaven—why did she need the money? Did not Tariq Pasha leave her enough? Is one million dollars not sufficient to keep an Ivanoff in the style to which she was accustomed? And why did Leyla, your daughter, help her?”
Ahmet sighed. He was used to his father’s outbursts, but this was a serious one. “I suggest, Father, that instead of encouraging your blood pressure to new heights asking rhetorical questions, you ask the girls themselves.” He shrugged. “A simple question, a simple answer. Then we shall know how to proceed.”
“Proceed? Take a look at this!” He flung a Turkish newspaper at Ahmet’s feet. “And this, and this….” The Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, Figaro…. “Japan, Germany, everybody is talking about the sale of the emerald.” He snorted. “And especially Russia and America. So? How long do you think it will take the CIA or the KGB to find out that it was Anna who sold the jewel?”
“Surely not. The secrecy of the Swiss banking system is sacrosanct.”
“Of course it is,” Michael roared, stomping his new cane, “but even in Swiss banks there are human beings—and there will always be one who can be bought. No, I tell you, Ahmet, we are in trouble. And I for one want to know why!”
After flinging himself back across the room to his desk, he pressed the intercom again and told Asil to get him a Paris number. He thwacked his new cane angrily against the side of the desk, bellowing with impatience as the answering machine picked up the call and Leyla’s voice asked sweetly if the caller would leave a message.
“Leyla,” he roared, “this is Kazahn Pasha. Why are you not at home when I call? Perhaps you are avoiding your family now? Because of all the trouble you are bringing upon us? You—and your sister, Anna! Where are you? And where is Anna? I order you to be on the next flight to Istanbul … both of you. And you can tell Anna she has Kazahn Pasha to reckon with!”
Slamming down the phone triumphantly, he beamed across the room at Ahmet. “There,” he said, satisfied with his performance, “that should put the fear of God into them both. And so it should, because, my dear son, I have a feeling they are both in terrible danger.”
Ahmet knew his father was right. The matter had escalated to global proportions. Who knew what the real story was behind the desire of nations to obtain the jewel? For some reason or other, they still wanted to find the Ivanoffs, and he had a feeling it was for more than the billions lying unclaimed in the banks. One thing he knew: He had better find out, and fast.
Back in his office, he dialed Leyla’s number, waiting patiently for the tone before leaving a message telling her to obey Kazahn Pasha’s orders and return at once with Anna. “You are both in grave danger,” he added. “Come home so we can help you….”
His next call was to a certain man in a small office on the waterfront at Piraeus. The man was a member of a well-known but impoverished Greek shipping family with access to every level of society,