“We’ve known about them for three years,” Gisela went on. She forced her way in a blare of horns onto Besiktas Street, through a light that had already changed. None of her memories were keeping her from being as aggressive a driver as Istanbul traffic required. “Ever since the – they made the Plan – my father and the other Old Fighters – the crabs, the aliens, have been attacking us one by one, all over Earth.”
“Which plan was that?” asked Kelly mildly, to give the impression that he was just making conversation.
“You’ll have to learn,” said Gisela. A sudden distance in her tone implied the question had not been delicate enough. “But not from me, it is not my place.”
Three truckloads of Paramilitary Police passed at speed with their two-note hooters blasting as Gisela turned past the open-air stadium on the Bosphorus side of the huge Taksim Park. Kelly kept his left hand over the pistol in his lap, knowing that the blue-bereted policemen hanging off the sides of their trucks might catch a glimpse into the interior of the low coupe. On a terrorist alert like this, a burst of automatic rifle fire through the Mercedes was a very possible response.
Perhaps because of a similar thought, the woman glanced at Kelly and said, “You saved my life, didn’t you? Was it your job to do that?”
Wonder what Elaine’s answer would be, Kelly thought, but he didn’t wonder at all. Aloud he said, “Look, dammit, maybe I needed a driver.”
It bothered him to be thanked for what he thought of as acts of simple humanity, getting somebody out of the line of fire, getting somebody to a dust-off bird. … It meant that either Kelly’s vision of humanity was skewed, or that other people’s perceptions of Kelly himself were very different from his own.
Two taxis and a BMW sedan were picking up passengers under the marquee of the Sheraton. Gisela pulled ahead of them and as far up onto the sidewalk as permitted by the posts set to prevent that behavior. “I’ll be quick,” Kelly said as he got out.
The driver’s door thumped closed an instant before Kelly’s own did. Gisela was already striding toward the hotel’s uniformed attendant. The agent caught up with her just as she handed the Turk a bank note folded at a slant so that the numerical 1000 on two corners was clearly visible. “No trouble if we run in for a few minutes, is there?” she asked cheerfully in Turkish, smiling down at the attendant from her six-inch height advantage.
“Well . . . ” the door man temporized, but his fingers had closed over the bill and were refolding it apparently of their own volition.
“Another one for you when we return,” Gisela promised, taking Kelly’s left arm with her own right hand and beginning to stride toward the entrance.
The doorman looked at the thousand-lire note, then toward the back of the leggy beauty who had given it to him. Kelly himself got only a bemused glance, though from the rear his coat and trousers were in worse shape than the coupe’s battered right side.
“Listen, this may get hot,” Kelly hissed in angry German as he pushed open a door for them. He had not spoken earlier because he did not know of any language he had in common with Gisela which the doorman did not share. “Having you along makes it worse.” He was trying to read her expression at the same time that he searched the lobby and alcoves for an observer or even an ambush.
“It makes it better, darling,” Gisela purred as her hand moved up to stroke his shoulder blades as they walked toward the elevator. “You want to convince them there’s nothing wrong, it’s all innocent – we’ll convince them.” She giggled – was the woman really that relaxed? – and added, “All not innocent, not so?”
Christ, thought Kelly as he stepped onto the elevator. She was probably right, but if the shit hit the fan again . . . The P-38 would be even harder to clear from his pants pocket than it had been from Gisela’s coat, and the snubbie was positioned for concealment rather than instant use.