The ship was as ghostly as it had appeared. The crew consisted of only two people—an old, silent captain and his young assistant, both of whom acted as if Mayra, Sara, and Jerome were invisible. Without asking any questions, they led them to a clean, sparse cabin and then went about their duties, their faces as unreadable as the sea. After a three-day sea journey across the eastern Mediterranean, a journey filled with a tense silence and the endless rocking of the waves, they were dropped off under the cover of darkness at a deserted, small fishing pier near Istanbul. The crew handed them a bag containing some Turkish Lira and a single key, and then the ship disappeared back into the dark sea.
The key belonged to an old, three-story apartment in Beyoğlu, a historic district on the European side of Istanbul. It was an area that was a beautiful and chaotic mix of the new and the old, where grand, nineteenth-century European-style buildings stood next to modern glass structures and trendy cafés, from which the aroma of freshly ground coffee wafted through the air.
Upon reaching the apartment, for the first time in weeks, they felt a fragile illusion of security. They took turns taking long, hot showers, a luxury that felt heavenly, and then used a local SIM card procured by Jerome to catch up on the world they had left behind. The normalcy of it all felt strange and distant.
"Alright," Mayra said two days later, spreading a large map of Istanbul on the small living room table. "Vacation time is over. We are not here to sightsee. Our target: the Ottoman Imperial Archives, located near Topkapi Palace."
Jerome, who was lying on the couch, let out a long sigh. "Another archive". Another infiltration. I thought we were historical detectives, not cat burglars."
"Sometimes the line between the two is very thin, Jerome," Sara remarked from the floor, where she was surrounded by old maps of Istanbul and books on Ottoman architecture. "Pierre Joseph died here. If any record of his stolen notes exists, we will find it there."
Jerome sat up and leaned over the table. He placed his laptop next to the map and opened a satellite image that showed the archive building, looking like a modern fortress.
"This is going to be much harder than last time," he said seriously. "That was a forgotten ruin in Iraq." This is one of the most secure buildings in one of the most important cities in Turkey. Its security system is more advanced than a modern museum in Berlin. Motion sensors in the walls, pressure plates on the floors, invisible infrared beams in every corridor, and high-definition cameras monitoring every inch, twenty-four hours a day."
He leaned back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "We cannot just walk in there. It would be suicide. We were lucky last time."
"It was not luck, Jerome. "It was ingenuity," Mayra corrected him. "And this time, we will do the same." We will not fight technology with technology. We will fight it with history."
"There you go with the philosophical talk again," Jerome muttered. "What does that even mean?"
"It means," Sara interjected, picking up an old book, "that this building, this archive, was not built from scratch. It was built by renovating an old Ottoman administrative building. And the Ottomans… they were masters of secrets. They built passages in the walls, tunnels under the floors. They made two of everything—one for the world to see, and one for the Sultan's eyes only."
Jerome looked skeptical. "You want us to find some hypothetical secret passage?" One that there is no proof of? What are we going to do: Go there and knock on the walls? 'Hello? Any secret passages in there?'"
"There is proof," Sara replied calmly and turned the book towards them. It showed an old, hand-drawn architectural plan from the eighteenth century. "Look. This is the original blueprint of the building. I downloaded it from the Istanbul University online archive. In several places, the walls are shown to be much thicker than necessary. And here… look here," she pointed to a section of the western wall. "This is an old ventilation shaft. It was built to carry smoke out from the kitchens and the hammam. It would have been sealed during the renovation, since they now have modern air conditioning."
Mayra and Jerome both leaned over the map. Sara was right. It was a small hope, but it was a concrete clue.
"Alright, let's say there is a secret passage," Jerome said, his voice still doubtful, but with less sarcasm. "But how do we find it? And what about Eleanor? She is not a fool. She knows our next stop could be Istanbul or Berlin. She will be waiting for us."
"This is where Attar's riddle comes in," Mayra said, his words echoing in her mind. "Find the secret of the Sultan who trusted his shadows more than his subjects." That, and the strange advice he had given her disguised as a café owner when they had first breathed the air of this city, though she only realized it now.
The day they had arrived with the apartment key, they had stopped for tea at a small nearby café. The owner had been a portly, cheerful Turk who made a joke about everything.
"First time in Istanbul, my friends?" he had asked.
"We are researchers," Mayra had replied curtly.
"Ah, history! "I am also a lover of history," he had said. "You will surely visit the old palaces and buildings. Just remember one thing, it is an old local superstition. Whenever you visit an old Ottoman building, always stay away from the western wall. They say that after the evening call to prayer, a strange cold air comes from those walls, as if the stones themselves are breathing." He had then laughed and walked away.
At the time, it had seemed like a silly, superstitious tale. But now, its meaning was becoming clear.
"He was giving us a clue," Mayra said. "He was telling us that the passage is on the western wall. We have to find that ventilation shaft."
The next two days were spent in tense, meticulous preparation. It felt less like academic research and more like planning a military operation. Jerome did not hack the security cameras around the archive, but he memorized their rotation patterns. Each camera had a blind spot of a few seconds as it panned from one direction to another.
Sara researched the Ottoman filing system so thoroughly that she probably knew it better than any current employee. She figured out that the most top-secret documents related to foreign diplomats from around seventeen ninety-two would be stored in a specific section—under "Confidential Correspondence of the Third Vizier," which was in the most secure vault, far from public access.
And Mayra created a highly convincing fake identity of a British historian, 'Elizabeth Greenwood,' complete with a forged research permit issued by Istanbul University. This was their backup plan.
Finally, the night of the operation arrived. The sky was overcast, and there was a strange chill in the air that was not just due to the weather.
"I am watching the camera patterns," Jerome's voice echoed in their small, almost invisible earpieces. He was watching them from the upper floor of a dark café across the street, which had a clear view of the archive's western wall. "You have a window of exactly twenty-seven seconds to reach the dark part of that wall. If you miss it, you will be in direct sight of the guards stationed on the roof."
Mayra and Sara looked at each other, their hearts pounding. They were dressed in black, form-fitting clothes that would allow them to blend into the shadows.
"Ready?" Mayra whispered.
Sara took a deep breath and nodded firmly. The fear was still there, but now it was mixed with a strange sense of thrill.
"Now!" Jerome's voice came.
They emerged from the shadows and, with the agility of two cats, crossed the street and reached the massive stone wall of the archive. They hid behind a large, ornate pillar just as a searchlight swept in their direction.
"Okay," Jerome said, his voice tense. "You have made it." Now find that ventilation shaft. Quickly."
It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. The wall was old, with centuries of weather marks and countless cracks. They began to run their hands slowly, silently, over the wall, searching for any hollow spot or a differently set stone.
"Time is running out," Jerome reminded them. "The next guard patrol begins in fifteen minutes." They inspect this very section of the wall."
Sara was about to give up when her eyes fell on a dense cluster of wild vines growing at the base of the wall. It was an oddity on the otherwise clean wall.
"Mayra, look here."
They carefully pushed the vines aside. And behind them, they saw what they had been looking for. A small, square iron grille, covered in centuries of rust and dust. It was an old ventilation shaft.
"Found it," Mayra whispered, a triumphant note in her voice.
But their joy was short-lived. The grille was secured with a heavy, old Ottoman-style padlock.
"Now what?" Sara asked.
Before Mayra could think of anything, Jerome's tense voice, now filled with alarm, came through their earpieces. "Problem." A very big problem. Two guards have deviated from their regular patrol and are heading your way. I do not know why, maybe they suspected something. They will be there in three minutes. Get out of there! Now!"
But it was too late to get out. If they moved from behind the pillar, they would be directly in the guards' path. They were trapped.
Was this the end of their plan? Would they be caught in front of an old wall?
Or was there a way through that rusted padlock, and if there was, could they open it in time?