Prologue. Istanbul, present day.

The train was running on time which was and yet wasn’t unusual. It was for this part of the globe, very little in the Middle East runs to a timetable, yet it wasn’t unusually as the Turkish rail system was modeled on the ultra-efficient German rail networks and they prided themselves in running an efficient system that could guarantee your arrival time to within five minutes no matter how long the journey was. In Turkey, there are quite a few journeys that take a hefty chunk out of a day, even with trains fast enough to rival most of Europe’s networks.

Steve had boarded the train in Ankara at 8am, taken a ‘continental breakfast’ with croissants and coffee on the train. The traditional Middle Eastern breakfast of Goat feta, olives, and bread with a dipping sauce of Tahina had been on offer, but the coffee had smelled too good to pass up, so he’d chosen that one.

Six hours later the train was pulling into the station and he was hungry again. Satisfying that hunger would have to wait until he found the place he was meeting his contact.

The station was just like any train station worldwide, busy people running everywhere. No one really taking in what was all around them, taking everything for granted. In one part of the station, a group or tourists had arrived and were taking pictures of everything. "Asians" Steve guessed, probably Japanese or Koreans who took pictures of everything that moved. He often wondered just what it was they saw that garnered enough interest that they wanted a permanent record of it, but then again maybe everything was so different that a picture was needed to show the folks back home!

Two years working in the British Embassy in Ankara had cured him of that, and then some! Now he saw, yet didn’t see the things around him, he saw the history of the place and enjoyed it, yet the whole place was just a part of the job now and most of the time it was just “there” the amazing Byzantine architecture alongside modern functional concrete buildings that just looked as if they’d always fitted together.

The cab rank was slightly to the right as you left the main building, the distinctive yellow of the cabs. Kind of a copy the New York cabs yet still slightly different (Turks loved to copy things like that and try to make the tourist feel at home so they’ll feel safer spending more money!) a half dozen of them were waiting on the rank.

Walking up to the first one he opened the door and climbed in, “Merheba” he greeted the driver in Turkish, “Topkapi please” the driver muttered a greeting back then leaned over and pressed a few buttons to start his meter then putting the car into gear set off.

The ride would work out expensive, but he wasn’t paying so he wasn’t worried, one of the great things working for the government was the travel was almost always of Whitehall’s tab, and that was just fine with him, mind you this trip was all business, at least until tonight when he would indulge himself a little, that he’d keep to himself so it would be all ‘cash up front’

The trip would take about fifteen minutes, normally it would be time to run through things, but today it was simple, he’d gotten a call last night from a contact telling him to meet in Istanbul at the ‘usual place’ no time had been given, but they had a system for working that out, the last meeting had been at noon so their next meeting would be at three pm the following day, a simple system really, always between the hours of six am and nine pm and always three hours after the time of the previous, so if the last one was at noon then the next was at three and the one after would be at six pm until you got to nine pm when the next would be at six in the morning!

Neither Steve or the cabbie saw the small red car following them, then again if they had they wouldn’t have worried at the middle aged female driver in the car, but she was interested in them.

“Yellow Taxi number 2541” she spoke into the phone she was holding, she hung up and put the car into gear