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and taking it away. A difficult matter, no doubt, but one that could be puzzled out later.
    It struck me as very likely that the gold was no longer there or had not been there in the first place. Still, one does not conclude that the grapes are sour without even attempting to see if the vine is within reach.
    Three million dollars—
    Just a portion of that wealth could do extraordinary things for the League for the Restoration of Cilician Armenia. Another chunk of gold would facilitate a vital worldwide direct-mail campaign for the Flat Earth Society. And more, and more. There was all that gold—perhaps—doing nothing for anyone, lying unattended and unknown, and here were all these marvelous groups able to make such good use of it.
    So I had to go.
    And it seemed such a facile matter, at least the first stages. I would go to Turkey and work things out from that point on. There was every reason to go and no particular reason not to. Cudahy's silly thesis was finished and would be accepted readily enough. I had completed my paper for the Jacobite Circle and mailed it off to their offices in Portree on the Isle of Skye. Most of all, I wanted to go. I feel that whenever possible one ought to do the things he wants to do.
    How was I to know the damned Turks would arrest me?
    Mustafa was poor company. He stayed with me like a summer cold and tried to shepherd me straight to the plane. I made for a newsstand and looked hungrily for something in English while Mustafa tugged at me. He could not have pried me loose with a crowbar. "Your mother was blinded by gonorrhea," I told him reasonably. "If you don't let me get something to read, I'll kill you."
    The selection in English was dismal. There was a Turkish guidebook, a sort of anthropological sex manual by Margaret Mead, and four Agatha Christie mysteries. I bought everything but the Margaret Mead and let Mustafa get me onto the plane.
    We sat in the tourist section. Evidently the Turkish Government intended to reroute spies as economically as possible. I had the middle seat between Mustafa and a fat schoolteacher—from Des Moines, I believe—who asked me at once if I was an American. I shook my head. She asked me if I spoke English, and I shook my head again. Then she put on her earphones and went to sleep.
    The ride to Shannon was long, choppy, uncomfortable, and supremely dull. I was wedged between the sick-sweet lavender scent of the schoolteacher and the awesome pungence of Mustafa, who evidently had never been taught to bathe. I read the Turkish guidebook—there was hardly anything in it about Balikesir—and I read the four Agatha Christies. I'd read three of them before, but it didn't really matter. After nine days in that cell I'd have read the Johannesburg phone directory and enjoyed it.
    The food was good, at least. It was tasteless, naturally, but there was a fairly large piece of some sort of beef on the tray, far more meat than I had had in nine days. There were also some plastic green peas and a crunchy green and purple salad. I ate everything but found myself missing the pilaff. I might never have pilaff like that again, I thought, and then I realized how I could contrive to eat that pilaff in the future. All I had to do was go to Turkey. I would be instantly arrested and instantly jailed, and I would be fed toast and pilaff and pilaff for the rest of my life.
    Except, of course, that I would never be able to return to Turkey. The Turkish Government would revoke my visa and never grant another, and the U.S. Government would probably cancel my passport. It was unfair. I had done nothing. I had simply gone quietly and legally to Turkey, but they take people's passports away from them all the time. Which meant not only that I would not be able to go to Turkey again, but that I very possibly would not be able to go anywhere.
    And throughout all of this there would be interrogation—endless interrogation. Why had I gone to Turkey? Who was I representing? What was I