The Shroud by Harold Robbins

Author:Harold Robbins
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

22

“Not British” buzzed in my head as I went back down the narrow alley.

What if it wasn’t Yuri?

Why would the person claim a nationality that he wasn’t?

The obvious reason had to be that he didn’t want his own ethnic background exposed, not realizing that the elderly scholar had attended a university in England.

What if Lipton had sent someone before me? And that someone was no longer available. Maybe terminally.

My paranoia started spiking. But it didn’t make sense that Lipton would send someone and have him lie to the scholar about his background. Since Lipton had arranged my meeting with the scholar there was no reason for him to send someone with a phony British accent.

“Eastern Europe” covered a lot of territory, but the one that stood out at the moment was Russia. Whoever the man was, he might be a competitor of Nevsky’s.

Also mine, since I was after the same prize.

Eastern European nicely fit Yuri, the Russian mafia, even my tennis buddies.

Whoever the visitor was, he had a head start of a week. I wondered whether I would be eating his dust for the rest of the quest.

I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. I should have listened to my instincts and gone back to New York. Hell, I should have listened to my instincts and never left in the first place—mafia or not.

That nagging feeling about the conversation with the old scholar stayed with me. Something just wasn’t right. Not that Ismet was patently deceptive—he struck me as sincere … up to a point.

What was wrong was the information. I hadn’t had a chance to do research on the Image but I had to wonder if what Ismet told me was available from other sources—scholarly works, the Internet, even telephone interviews.

In other words, why was I sent to Urfa to find out something that could have been obtainable from easier sources?

Maybe I was overreacting.

As Lipton said, important information might be nothing more than an offhand remark from the person I interviewed. But I couldn’t think of anything Ismet said that made fireworks go off in my head.

Had I missed something?

I had the feeling I did.

I killed some time window-shopping at little shops along the way and got back to the spot where I was supposed to meet Vahid.

When I came out of the second passageway, Vahid with the Land Cruiser wasn’t there.

It was Yuri.

“You’ve been following me.”

“Of course.”

Arrogant bastard. “Did you scare off my ride?”

He shrugged and looked around. “I saw you being dropped off but your driver hasn’t returned. Whatever Lipton paid him apparently wasn’t enough for a round-trip. Which means we can have dinner together. I spotted a café that an adventurer like yourself will enjoy.”

“What I would enjoy is dinner alone.”

“Why do you go out of your way to offend me? You know you are attracted to me. All women are.”

Fortunately, he said it with a grin. And he was right—at least the part about me being attracted to him. I hated myself for it.

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