For now, however, what he needed most of all was sleep. He closed his eyes, and sleep came with the fireshot dreams Kelly had expected. But the dreams changed, and by the time he awakened at twilight he could remember nothing but moving figures and black walls that reached toward heaven.
Airport terminals have certain worldwide similarities, but Istanbul’s had more in common with the military portion of Beirut Airport than with any civilian structure Kelly’d walked through. Luggage from the Pan Am flight that had just landed was arrayed on a single long, low table in the center of a hangar converted for baggage examination.
Each individual claimed his or her own suitcases under the eyes of armed guards, and carried them to the examination booths – porters took the weight for some passengers, mostly foreigners, but no one else could accept the responsibility.
Beyond hand luggage Kelly had only one suitcase and that – a solid, vinyl case of Turkish manufacture – held clothing. He had no need, himself, to bring unusual hardware into Turkey, as it had turned out, because his overseas phone calls had been more successful than he had dared hope. Funny. It always surprised him when other people came through the way he would have done for them – 120 percent and no questions asked that didn’t bear on the fulfillment of the request.
It would have been easy for Kelly to snatch his bag and stride ahead of the remaining passengers, and reaching an empty examination booth would have saved half an hour of waiting for civilians – nervous, belligerent, or both – to be processed through ahead of him.
But even though the stocky veteran had nothing to fear from Customs, he let his training override his instinct to go full bore and finish whatever he was doing by the most direct route possible. He kept a low profile, deliberately followed a middle-aged man with a bag in either hand and a brown Yugoslav passport held with his entry documents between two fingertips and the side of the smaller case.
The Customs agent for whom Kelly opened his bag wore khaki pants with a tie and white shirt. The uniform of the National Policeman watching him was of gray-green wool and included a Browning Hi-Power in a holster of white patent leather. Beyond the line of booths was a squad of soldiers in fatigues, smoking and occasionally adjusting the slings of the Thompson submachineguns they carried.
Prime Minister Ecevit had taken the Defense portfolio for himself, but that was cosmetic. He was also making a real attempt to control the radical violence from both sides before a military junta ousted him to cure the problem more directly. The open display of armed force seemed to concern most of the foreign passengers. Kelly himself had enough other things to worry about.
“I love Istanbul,” Kelly joked in Turkish with the Customs agent, “but do they let me stay here? Surely there must be runway sweepers to be maintained in a more lovely part of Turkey than Incirlik!”
“You are a Turk?” asked the National Policeman, running a knowledgeable hand along the hinges of the suitcase instead of prodding through the shirts as he had done with the Yugoslav minutes before.
“No,” said the Customs agent, flipping from the front to the back of the artistically-worn passport, but sizing Kelly up sidelong as he stamped the entry data. The American was a hair taller than the Anatolian norm, but his stocky build was right as were the dark complexion and straight black hair. With a moustache and a few days polish on his Turkish, he could pass as a native – of the country, though not of any specific district.
He might have to do just that.
“Not, but should be,” Kelly agreed with a smile. “It’s good to be back. Even headed for Incirlik.”
“Go with God, Mr. Bradsheer,” the Customs agent said, closing the suitcase with one hand and returning Kelly’s false passport in the other. The currency declaration form went into a file beneath the examination table.
Kelly smiled, snapped the latches of the case – no time to buckle the safety straps as well – and said, “Go with God, brother,” as he walked out the rear of the canvas booth.